Curator and co-founder of dpr-barcelona, ​​a publishing house-studio for architectural research and practice, and researcher at the architecture department of the ETH Zürich University, Ethel Baraona Pohl is in Lisbon to participate in the festival “A revolution like this – struggle and fiction: the housing issue”, promoted by the Goethe-Institut Portugal.

Speaking to Lusa, the researcher of Salvadoran origin living in Barcelona believes that the previous Portuguese government (PS) “did good things” and that Lisbon has “good people researching and debating”.

“I hope that Lisbon has already passed the extreme period that Barcelona has experienced in recent years,” she said, noting that the Catalan city has suffered the impact of “policies that promoted mass tourism or that were only intended to generate money.”

However, in the last eight years, “a lot of regulations have been adopted for local accommodation and the city is a little calmer,” she notes. “What is needed is balance and regulation,” she points out, stressing that the solutions have to be political and that “architects and urban planners can only help a little.”

Only regulation will ensure that “rents do not increase excessively, businesses do not focus solely on serving tourists, and prices are at a level where local people can have a coffee or a beer,” she believes.

Ethel Baraona Pohl has focused on inclusive housing, for more vulnerable groups. “There are still many difficulties, but good practices are emerging,” she says, acknowledging that “it is not easy” to respond to the various layers of exclusion. The researcher advocates the creation of “a specific space” for these groups – women, seniors, racialised people, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and queers – where they feel “safer”, which will then facilitate relationships with other communities.

“It is not easy to create inclusive housing for everyone quickly”, she acknowledges, adding that it is necessary to “work with the communities to understand their needs”.

In Barcelona, ​​over the last six years, there have been “some cooperative housing projects focused on different groups of the population that are working quite well”.

It also helps – she stresses – that “younger architects are more sensitive and are not yet involved in market dynamics”.