The “Cals Frares, NGOs’ House” provides workspaces and opportunities for associations and groups to participate in socio-cultural activities, learn, explore and create. This site hosts various cultural, artistic, and educational programs and activities to foster creativity and community trust. It facilitates situations for people to get together and get to know each other.

The foundation and operation of the “Cals Frares, NGOs’ House” is based on a cooperative approach, from its creation to its function. This site serves as a tool for this cooperation model, as the members of the NGOs and groups are the most active part of society, bringing together people of all ages, professions, and nationalities. The association’s role in developing civil society is growing along with the municipality’s support for joint projects and activities.

With the transformation of the “Cals Frares, NGOs’ House” into a generator of social life for the municipality of Tiana, it is possible to achieve:

• Strengthen local identity.
• Generate an intergenerational social and cultural meeting point for the population that does not exclude anyone.
• Democratize access to municipal resources and improve the quality of life for all.
• Encourage community involvement and allow the community to act in their municipality through the House of Entities their resources to start new activities and services.
• Create a third place that plays a significant role in the public life of the municipality.
• Promote collaborations and exchange of knowledge between entities and groups.

Based on an analysis elaborated on the territorial, administrative and social context in which the new building is located and through a participatory process with the technical and political team and the entities, associations, and groups of the municipality, we were able to define the following:

• the site identity,
• the program of the use,
• the distribution proposal,
• the architectural intervention criteria,
• the criteria for the incorporation of the gender perspective,
• the management proposal and, 
• the “meanwhile” activities.

With the Catalan industrial revolution, Terrassa became a major center of the textile sector in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Factories, warehouses, and residential buildings are concentrated in the city during the period of Modernism, with such remarkable examples as Masia Freixa and Casa Alegre de Sagrera.

For the citizens of Terrassa, the patrimonial elements become elements of identity. It is an active citizenry concerned with conserving and preserving these assets that are relics of the familiar past and translate into citizen pride. The link is based on associations of residents interested in heritage, which have the support and advice of entities such as the Heritage Board and the Center for Historical Studies of Terrassa. Terrassa City Council gives them a voice to express their opinions and assessments in expanding the inventory of Terrassa’s Cultural Heritage assets. In short, a review and group reflection to continue guarding the heritage with the best possible conditions in a correlative legacy from past to future.

The objectives from which the participatory process is set are:

• Facilitate the dissemination and understanding of the progress document of the MPOUM, and the background linked to the regulation of the Cultural Heritage of Terrassa.
• Achieve a higher quality plan/project: Collect different perspectives and proposals on the elements to be regulated and the criteria to be considered.
• Weave new relationships and improve governance with the affected agents of the territory, to facilitate their management and monitoring during the participatory process and the following stages of urban planning.

The team (Jordi Peralta Fernández + *estel)  proposes a holistic and experiential study approach. Create territorial reading at all scales by observing everyday life and the interrelationships it establishes in the neighborhood’s ecosystem. The methodology of the process intrinsically includes all the lines of work involved in the 2030 Agenda in its social, physical, environmental, and economic dimensions and its objectives to enrich this technical vision with citizen perception and aspiration. The work process organizes different participatory formats that are transdisciplinary and transparent.

This process aims to combine the awakening of the environment’s capabilities to respond to the needs detected with the perspectives and knowledge of technicians and citizens. Through their respective direct or indirect involvement in the work process, people of any age, condition, and situation have participated in the process.

The team put activities together to gain a greater understanding of the context. These organized activities included in-situ observations, preliminary conversations with crucial actors in the territory, a survey, two participatory sessions, and a return session to the citizens, the technical, and the political team of the Municipality of Terrassa and the Diputació de Barcelona.