PAX Patios de la Axerquía is an urban-rehabilitation initiative established in Córdoba in 2018 by a group working in architecture and anthropology. It promotes the refurbishment of historic courtyard houses through cooperative processes and social innovation, with the aim of retaining residential use and resisting gentrification. 14
The project’s first pilot was the renovation of a tenement house at Calle Montero 12 in the Axerquía district. The building, once home to 18 families and recognised in Córdoba’s Courtyards Festival, had been progressively abandoned. The pilot followed the formation of PAX Astronautas, a housing cooperative of six families. 1
Architects Gaia Redaelli, Jacinta Ortiz Miranda and Carlos Anaya Sahuco designed the intervention. It sought to recover the building’s architectural character and its relationship with the surrounding urban fabric, while preserving its ecological and social value as a shared heritage site. 21 The work reused elements found during the renovation, including parts of a well and hydraulic flooring, and combined aerothermal systems and radiant floors with passive measures that draw on the adobe walls, plants and permeable courtyard soil. 1
PAX’s broader activity centres on bringing underused courtyard houses back into residential use through citizen and cooperative participation. Its approach connects the physical renovation of historic buildings with the continuity of community life in Córdoba’s old town. The initiative received a 2022 Europa Nostra Award. 147