The six founders, all women, of Cierto Estudio began their cooperative practice after graduating from Barcelona’s Technical School of Architecture (ETSAB), in 2014, amid a deep economic crisis, when work was hard to find. Yet within just a few years, they were leading one of the most visible projects initiated by mayor and former anti-eviction activist Ada Colau, in the city’s effort to address a severe shortage of affordable housing. The sextet—Carlota de Gispert, Marta Benedicto, Ivet Gasol, Anna Llonch, Lucía Millet, and Clara Vidal—won the high-profile competition to master plan a block of subsidized residences located beside the Parc de les Glòries, then still under construction, and they went on to build one of the housing quadrants with a timber structure and vivid colored facades.

The studio realized another of Colau’s star projects, winning the 2021 “New Green Axes” competition for the central district of L’Eixample, which replaced through traffic with verdant pedestrian promenades and seating areas for neighborly schmoozing. Completed two years later, the project covers 20 blocks of the Consell de Cent as well as three cross streets. Though controversial when announced, it has proved very popular, says de Gispert, 37, who spoke to RECORD on behalf of the studio.

Like others of their generation in Spain, the group’s organization is not top-down but horizontal. All decisions, including project designs, are made through debate and consensus. Tasks, such as visiting professorships, are shared among the partners, particularly now that several are young mothers, though each project is overseen by a single principal.

The group bonded as students when they jointly rented a space to work together on their final-year thesis projects. Their first commissions were typical for recent graduates: kitchen and bath renovations and apartment interiors, which honed their skills and focus on detail. This period also sharpened their critique of conventional housing layouts, which “haven’t changed in a hundred years,” de Gispert points out, “while society has—tremendously.” In response, the architects try to make rooms bigger, functionally indeterminate, and connected without hallways. While Spanish kitchens are traditionally enclosed, for example, the architects often open them up at the center of the home. “People spend many hours there. It’s a social space, where so much life happens,” she adds. In the firm’s Glòries housing, the kitchens are situated beside the open public-access galleries, encouraging a sense of connection among neighbors. The group also thought this might protect women in cases of domestic violence.

Now with a staff of 19, Cierto Estudio’s portfolio includes interior renovations of three hotels, several private residences, housing for abused minors in Terrassa, Spain, and a large mixed-use block in Bordeaux, France.

As the bright polychromy and nonhierarchical layouts of their residential designs may suggest, the early work of the late Ricardo Bofill and his Taller de Arquitectura is a significant influence, de Gispert confirms, but the group’s field of admiration is wide, encompassing postwar figures like Gio Pon­ti, Aldo van Eyck, and the local architect Francesc Mitjans. To these touchstones must be added their own contemporary, feminist take on the modern tradition, renovating old ideals with fresh energy and creativity.