Urban Share-farming

The concept of masoveria (Urban Share-farming) was very common in Catalonia’s rural history. Officially a masover (Share-farming) was granted the temporary use of a mas (farmhouse) that he did not own. The masover and the owner agreed a contract whereby the masover maintained the house and cultivated the land belonging to the farm, in exchange for which he kept a share of the crops.

Some empty homes in the city are in a very poor state of repair and as a result cannot be either rented out or sold. It seems sensible, then, to bring people who have difficulty accessing a home together with properties that require refurbishing or maintenance. Urban masovería transposes the old system of sharecropping between masovers and owners to cities: it is an agreement between owners and tenants in which specific contract periods are set that justify a certain investment of time, material and human resources. And it is also a concurrence of needs: people who need a home and homes that people to maintain them.

 

PILOT STUDY: M.U.L.A. (Masoveria Urbana per la Llar Alternativa)

2012

The M.U.L.A. (Urban Masosveria for an Alternative Home) project was begun by a group of young people who wanted to move out of their parents’ homes by means of a formula other than renting. Finding their options limited by the recession, which made it impossible for them to find work and hence a home of their own, they hit upon the notion of urban masoveria and the opportunities it offers as a way to tackle the great paradox: people without homes and homes without people.

“Being able to exchange time for something other than money was a revelation for us. Money has always been a brake on our lives, and we saw in masoveria a possibility to affirm ourselves in a direct and very human way.”

They studied the issue and discovered that even though it exists in the legal framework, there is no definition of what constitutes urban masoveria, as there are very few projects of this type in urban settings. As a result, they decided to launch their project as a pilot and to establish the M.U.L.A. group in order to set a precedent and to acquire experience that would help other emerging urban masoveria projects.

In the summer of 2012, they found a house that had been left vacant for various reasons in the Can Baró neighbourhood in Barcelona. After a period of negotiation, they agreed with the owners to take on the building on the basis of urban masoveria for a period of five years: the masovers undertook to do certain structural reforms to the house and to install mains water and electricity.

 

2015

Many people have participated in the project in various ways. Three and a half years on and the house is almost fully refurbished, the services are practically completed and only the finishes and new, alternative supply systems are still outstanding.

“Our aim is to fit out the house in such a way that it is as self-sufficient as can be. The fact that we have learned an enormous amount while working here has opened up many possibilities and we know that what the city and the world need is a decrease in many areas of life, above all in energy usage and consumption in general. Since this is by nature an experimental project, we set ourselves the goal of going further than a simple refurbishment by including concepts such as alternative energy, an urban vegetable garden and orchard, rainwater harvesting, the reuse of grey water and intelligent architecture.”

 

2017

It remains to be seen how far the M.U.L.A. project in Chalet Mercedes can get by July 2017, when the contract ends. For the moment, an associative movement of masoveria houses has been set up, as has a network of residents involved in launching new projects that will pave the way for further opportunities for interaction and motivation in the neighbourhood.