Spain
39 places across 11 territories, 2 nationwide
From open councils and txokos to citizen labs, Spain links a vernacular tradition of the commons with a generation of self-managed spaces, recovered vacant lots and participatory urbanism. The tensions of gentrification and institutionalisation are part of the story, and this atlas tells them too.
Tap a point to see its summary; clusters open when pressed. The full keyboard-friendly list lives in Explore.
Places by territory
CSA La Tabacalera
Lavapiés, Madrid · Madrid
The former Embajadores Tobacco Factory, partly ceded as a self-managed social centre: workshops, rehearsals, a garden, screen printing and assemblies…
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationProjectDecide Madrid / Consul
Madrid · Madrid
The digital participation platform (proposals, participatory budgets, debates) whose free software, Consul, has been adopted by hundreds of instituti…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceEl Campo de Cebada
La Latina, Madrid · Madrid
The lot of the demolished La Latina sports centre, ceded to neighbours and run by assembly for seven years: garden, sport, cinema, assemblies and sel…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceEsta es una Plaza
Lavapiés, Madrid · Madrid
A lot abandoned for thirty years in Lavapiés turned by neighbours into a self-managed community garden: vegetable plots, open-air theatre, an exchang…
VerifiedSee place →Civic design collectivesProjectLos Madriles
Madrid · Madrid
An atlas of neighbourhood initiatives in Madrid: a collaborative cartography making visible hundreds of gardens, vacant lots, social centres and comm…
VerifiedSee place →Reuse of vacancySpaceMatadero Madrid
Madrid · Madrid
An early 20th-century municipal slaughterhouse converted into a centre for contemporary creation: halls for art, film, design, residencies and public…
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationSpaceMedialab Matadero
Madrid · Madrid
The citizen lab of international reference: anyone can propose a project or join another, with working groups, open calls and cultural mediation.
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceTrabensol
Torremocha de Jarama, Madrid · Madrid
Spain's pioneering senior cohousing: a cooperative of elders who designed and self-manage their own living centre with apartments, common spaces and…
VerifiedSee place →Ateneu Popular 9 Barris
Nou Barris, Barcelona · Catalonia
An asphalt plant occupied by neighbours in 1977 and turned into a community cultural centre devoted to social circus.
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationProjectAteneus de Fabricació
Barcelona (red) · Catalonia
A public network of neighbourhood fablabs: digital fabrication at the service of schools, organisations and residents, with social return instead of…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceCan Batlló
La Bordeta, Barcelona · Catalonia
A 19th-century factory precinct recovered through neighbourhood pressure ("tick-tock, Can Batlló") and run communally: people's library, carpentry, b…
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationProjectDecidim
Barcelona (global) · Catalonia
Free digital infrastructure for participatory democracy, governed by its own community (Metadecidim) and used by hundreds of cities and institutions…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceLa Borda
Sants, Barcelona · Catalonia
A housing cooperative under use cession on public land, self-developed by its inhabitants with the architecture collective Lacol: generous common spa…
VerifiedSee place →Participatory urbanismProjectSuperilles (supermanzanas)
Barcelona · Catalonia
Reorganising traffic into superblocks to give streets back to pedestrians, play and greenery.
VerifiedSee place →Las Naves
Valencia · Valencian Community
Former industrial warehouses in the Grao converted into a public centre for social and urban innovation: city missions (València 2030), health, energ…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceSolar Corona
El Carmen, Valencia · Valencian Community
A private lot ceded and activated by collectives and neighbours of El Carmen as a community space for culture, cinema and encounter.
VerifiedSee place →Third placeProjectTribunal de las Aguas
Valencia · Valencian Community
The customary court that settles the huerta's irrigation disputes in the street, orally and in minutes, and has done so for a millennium.
VerifiedSee place →Astra
Gernika · Basque Country
Gernika's former arms factory converted, through youth and neighbourhood initiative, into a "social creation factory" co-managed with the town counci…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingNeighbourhood or villageErrekaleor Bizirik
Vitoria-Gasteiz · Basque Country
A 1950s neighbourhood slated for demolition and reinhabited as a self-managed community: assemblies, gardens, collectively funded solar power.
VerifiedSee place →Third placeProjectSociedades gastronómicas (txokos)
Donostia · Basque Country
Collective kitchens where members cook, eat and talk as equals: the vernacular gastronomic third place par excellence, with over a century of history.
Partially verifiedSee place →Reuse of vacancySpaceTabakalera
Donostia · Basque Country
Donostia's great tobacco factory transformed into an international centre for contemporary culture, with a creation library, cinema, residencies and…
VerifiedSee place →Civic design collectivesSpaceWikitoki
Bilbao · Basque Country
A laboratory of collaborative practices in Bilbao's old town: cooperative coworking, social prototyping and experimental internal governance.
VerifiedSee place →Casa Grande del Pumarejo
Sevilla · Andalusia
An 18th-century palace inhabited and defended by its neighbours as a community house: living heritage, a popular school, a solidarity pantry.
VerifiedSee place →Civic foodSpaceHuerto del Rey Moro
Sevilla · Andalusia
A community garden in a historic void of Seville's old town, self-managed by neighbours: urban agroecology, free play and territorial memory in the h…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceLa Casa Invisible
Málaga · Andalusia
A 19th-century mansion in central Málaga turned into a citizen-run social and cultural centre: critical thought, music, crafts and the defence of the…
VerifiedSee place →Civic design collectivesProjectRecetas Urbanas
Sevilla · Andalusia
Civic architecture through creative alegality: classrooms, schools and facilities self-built with communities, recycling materials and skirting the r…
VerifiedSee place →Apadrina un Olivo
Oliete, Teruel · Aragon
Recovering 100,000 abandoned century-old olive trees in Oliete through citizen sponsorship: local jobs, an oil mill of their own and repopulation in…
Partially verifiedSee place →Participatory urbanismProjectEstonoesunsolar
Zaragoza · Aragon
A programme that turned dozens of vacant lots into squares, gardens and courts through employment plans, with neighbourhood decision processes.
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationProjectFrena la Curva
Zaragoza (red global) · Aragon
A civic platform born in 48 hours at the start of the pandemic: a mutual aid map, an open innovation festival and replicas in some twenty countries.
VerifiedSee place →Art and territorySpaceHarinera ZGZ
San José, Zaragoza · Aragon
An abandoned industrial flour mill turned into a community culture space governed three ways by the administration, a collective of cultural agents a…
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationSpaceZaragoza Activa (La Azucarera)
Zaragoza · Aragon
A former sugar factory converted into a public ecosystem for social entrepreneurship, citizen innovation and collaboration (an incubator, ThinkZAC, L…
VerifiedSee place →Concejos abiertos y facenderas
Montaña leonesa · Castile and León
Neighbourhood assemblies (concejo abierto) and communal works (facendera, hacendera) that still govern hundreds of small municipalities and commonly…
Partially verifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationSpaceEl Hueco
Soria · Castile and León
A social entrepreneurship ecosystem against depopulation: coworking, a rural accelerator and the Presura repopulation fair.
Partially verifiedSee place →Arquitecturas Colectivas
Red estatal · Nationwide
A network of groups and people building the city in a participatory way: itinerant gatherings, legal tools for the citizen management of spaces and m…
VerifiedSee place →Civic design collectivesProjectCIVICS (mapa de innovación ciudadana)
Madrid · Nationwide
A collaborative cartography of thousands of citizen initiatives in cities across Spain and Ibero-America.
VerifiedSee place →Territory by typology
| Territory | Third place | Participatory urbanism | Civic design collectives | Art and territory | Reuse of vacancy | Civic food | Commons and belonging | Civic labs and participation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madrid | · | 1 | 1 | · | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| Catalonia | · | 1 | · | 1 | 1 | · | 3 | 2 |
| Valencian Community | 1 | 1 | · | · | 1 | · | 1 | 1 |
| Basque Country | 1 | · | 1 | · | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Andalusia | 1 | · | 1 | · | 1 | 1 | 3 | · |
| Aragon | · | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Navarre | · | · | · | · | 1 | 1 | · | · |
| Castile and León | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | · | 1 |
| Extremadura | · | · | · | · | 1 | · | 1 | · |
| Galicia | · | · | · | · | 1 | · | 1 | · |
| Canary Islands | · | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | · |
| Nationwide | · | · | 2 | · | · | · | · | 1 |