Article on the PROHABIT research project

The last issue of the journal Open House International, (vol. 44, no.1, March 2019), includes the article “The Social Construction of a Neighbourhood Identity”, by Leandro Madrazo. This article is a reflection derived from the results obtained in the PROHABIT project, co-financed by the RecerCaixa research programme.  The purpose of the project was to undertake an interdisciplinary study, involving architects-planners and social and environmental psychologists, to understand the process of the construction of a sense of community and place identity in three neighbourhoods of the city of Barcelona: Trinitat Nova, Plus Ultra and Vallcarca.  

The study has revealed some of the values (community, attachment, and identity) associated to places, which can be valuable inputs in the decision making processes in neighbourhood planning. Our contemporary urban environments– open, participative and dynamic, with social and physical structures which are irreducible to fixed forms and patterns– demand planning practices which are not circumscribed to specific decision-making domains, nor compartmentalized in specialized areas of expertise. In this regard, the experience of the PROHABIT project can contribute to deepening the collaboration between social scientists and architects-planners in neighbourhood planning.