Abstract

ANDRE, Isabel  and  ROUSSELLE, Muriel. Creative social strategies in Barcelona: The Walden-7 case. Finisterra [online]. 2010, n.90, pp.71-90. ISSN 0430-5027.

The metropolis of Barcelona is widely recognised as an innovating milieu. This article focuses on the conditions and opportunities the city offers for social innovation, that is to say the development of creative strategies pointing at new solutions for social problems left without adequate answers. We focus our study upon the development of residential urban space and we take a special interest in the Walden-7 case, located at Sant Just Desvern, Metropolitan Area of Barcelona -four decades of experience frequently referred to as an “accomplished urban utopia”. The Walden-7 is a very early intervention of urban regeneration where the design of collective space, the conception of new neighbourhood relationships and the inside organisation of the apartments have left striking marks of social innovation. This article highlights the role played by adversity as a socially creative impulse alongside the temporality and the course of social innovations.

Keywords : Social innovation; socially creative milieu; urban utopias; Walden7; Barcelona.

        · abstract in Portuguese | French     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )