Re-centering: a gathering to remind ourselves (and others) of why we even want to build a cohousing

The Reef
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My friends at Parti Collective are organizing one of their knowledge sharing events (they call them “dancefloors”, but they are basically Zoom calls) on Housing Transitions. The invited speaker (“dj”) is someone I, as a Reefling, am eager to hear from. This is what the invitation email has to say:

Our guest DJ Adrià Garcia i Mateu is a co-founder of La Borda: yes, that La Borda, the award-winning community-led housing cooperative in Barcelona that sparked a whole movement :fire:. We’re talking 60+ cooperative housing projects across Catalonia in 10 years, a thriving ecosystem of non-profits and coops rewriting the rules of who gets to live where and how.

But we won’t stop at what has happened. We’re also diving into what could happen next :crystal_ball:.

Fresh off the press: a brand new Futures of Housing project sketching out four radical scenarios for Catalonia, from a new democracy of homeowners, to platform-captured rental markets, to a full-blown National Public Housing System, to a housing revolution.

The big question on the dancefloor: :backhand_index_pointing_down: Can Europe’s housing transitions be led from below, and does the micro ever truly reshape the macro?

:spiral_calendar:Friday 27 March | 2. pm CET :link: [Zoom link]

So, we are all invited of course, and I will certainly attend alongside @matthias

But that made me think. Right now we are deep into the practicalities of permitting. This is how it should be. And yet, if we have any spare capacity, it could make sense to reconnect to the deep reasons why we even got entangled with building a cohousing. We knew it would be long and difficult, and yet we went for it anyway. Are we crazy? Unreasonable.

No, I don’t think so. Seeing the documentary The Cost of Growth helped me reconnect this project, which is the collective project of 20 Brussels households, to a much broader collective effort for a safer, healthier, cleaner, cheaper, more social, way of life. This is something I feel strongly about. If anything, the world of 2026 (as opposed to that of our beginnings in 2021, somewhat less volatile) makes me even more convinced that not living in a cohousing is an unacceptable risk of loneliness and defenselessness against the market- and geopolitical shocks that might come.

So here’s my idea:

  1. Everyone is invited to the online event by Parti Collective. I very much think that cohousing and cooperative housing, though different, are part of the same movement, and respond to similar challenges.
  2. I wonder if @reef-external would be interested in attempting to set up a small public event on cohousing. People could learn from us, but also from Wooncoop or other projects. It could also be an indirect way to recruit, who knows? And for us, it could be a way to reconnect to the deep reasons we are doing this.

Any thoughts?

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Update: after discussing this with @joannes on the side of today’s plenary, we decided that he would sound Alessandro out of the possibility to make this into an event of the New European Bauhaus Festival 2026 (mid-June). If not, we’ll rediscuss and probably go it alone.

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@joannes what did Alessandro have to say after all?

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Agenda of NEB festival not fixed. We can do smth in the evening hours so as to not interfere with the daytime programme. Could 9, 10 or 11 June. Friday 12 June is OCDance.

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Great! How do you see it in terms of workgroup? Shall we do a helping circle, or will it sit with @reef-external ? Either way I am happy to lend a hand.

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Cool, thanks for sharing @alberto, I’ll try to attend the “dancefloor” on Friday! :man_dancing: :mirror_ball:

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Hey @joannes where are we with this? I might even have an extra speaker in Adrià.

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Hi @alberto, I missed this, any chance there is a recording available?

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The event will be either Tue 9 or Wed 10 June in the evening (@Sarah this is in the future; no recording yet :)). Let’s do a HC indeed. Adrià? I’ll bring it up in @reef-external on Monday.

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So Adrià Is available. He reports that both evenings there are dinners of the European CLTs networks, the 9th in Gent. He is happy to cancel one of the two to be with us. I suggest we keep the 10th to make it easier from someone in CLT Brussels to take part.

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In case it can be of help, from what I understand of it this guy took up a leadership role in the building of cohousing l’Echappée. It might be a long shot, but you never know whether he’d be interested? Or maybe we could screen his documentary?

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So 10th it is, @joannes ?

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Yes!

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OK. Next step, get volunteers for a HC I imagine? I volunteer of course. Will send an initial event outline.

Do you imagine starting at 18.00? Too early?

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We should close at about 10pm and align with the events at NEB that afternoon and leave people some time to grab a bite, or shall we offer some very simple food ourselves? I found Adrià https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriagm/

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I would not offer a meal for sure, maybe some nuts and tea, something like that.
The last event at NEB start at 18.00. So we could do: start at 19.30, close at 20.45, hang out until 22.00?

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I have his contact details, in case this is still relevant (almost rented his apartment in l’echappé for the summer a few years ago). @alberto, @joannes?

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Not sure whether we have room for two speakers. We’ll let the HC decide. HC to be constituted.

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Hey @joannes here’s a draft agenda to submit to the HC.

Living, together. New pathways to affordable housing in Europe

Namahn, Rue de la Limite/Grensstraat 21 – 1210 Brussels
10 June 2026, 19.30

Housing cooperatives. Cohousing. Community Land Trusts. As the European housing crisis deepens, more and more people are exploring solutions that involve working together to build, refurbish and manage housing stocks – in Brussels, as well as pretty much everywhere in Europe. In this event, some of the protagonists of these experiments take stock of their experience, share what they are learning, and discuss with anyone interested. Everyone is welcome, whatever their experience.

Agenda

19.30 – Welcome
19.35 – Conversation starter. Adrià Garcia i Mateu (Holon Coop. European Community Land Trust Network) on the victories and challenges of the housing transition in Catalonia.
20.05 – Panel discussion with:

  • Audrey Henry. Secretary of State for Urban Planning, Brussels Region
  • Zjef Van Acker (?). Wooncoop
  • Someone from Community Land Trust Brussels (Thibault Leroy?) if they will come, but they have their networking dinner. If not, we can have Adrià represent CLTs.
  • Someone from The Reef (Lee?)

The logic is to have one each for CLT, coops and regular cohousings, plus the government. We need a facilitator. Maybe a journalist? I have a friend at Euractiv, can ask him if he knows someone.

21.00 – Interactive exercise (?). Maybe something like Lee’s “treasure chest”, where we invite people to put wishes for their own housing future and then end up opening it and re-arranging the wishes on a whiteboard or something.
21.15 – Hanging out and socializing
22.00 – Close out.

Thoughts?

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Alberto, quick first response, it’s on the 10th, not the 12th.

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