WHAT SENDE TAUGHT US ABOUT LOW-TECH, HIGH-HEART CREATIVITY

There are places that feel less like buildings and more like ideas that decided to grow a garden. Sende is one of them.

Last week we landed there for the ECHN workshop “Low‑tech Communication from the Village”, in one of Europe’s first rural coliving and coworking spaces located in a tiny mountain pueblo.

For a few days, creative hubs from across the continent gathered to explore how to tell powerful stories with simple tools, wild curiosity and even more humanity.

When you step into Sende, you don’t just arrive at a coliving; you walk into a living artwork of creativity, care, and rural imagination.

Being there for the workshop felt like entering the inner kitchen of one of Europe’s most pioneering rural hubs. We left with hearts full, notebook full of sketches, and a vibrant head full with low‑tech, high‑human ideas.

A village that thinks with its heart

Sende is often described as the first rural coliving and coworking in a remote village in Europe.

You can feel that pioneering spirit in every corner. The stone walls, small-scale spaces, the way the houses open into the street and the street into the landscape. Everything whispers that big ideas do not need big cities. Only committed people.

That commitment has names and faces: Maruchi, Edo, Sasha, Luis, Xoan. They mix radical hospitality with playful experimentation, turning the village into a canvas for gatherings, art, and unlikely encounters between neighbours, creatives and hub leaders.

Watching how they move (never rushed, always attentive), reminded me that rural innovation starts with something very simple: being deeply human in how you host.

Meeting Europe’s imagination engines

One of the most powerful parts of the workshop was the people it brought together. ECHN managed to bring together a small constellation of creative hubs that, each in their own way, are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in their territories.

Some work with performing arts, others with design, others with social innovation. But they all share a belief that culture is not decoration. It is the foundation.​

Conversations around the table flowed easily from funding and burnout to belonging and failure. We swapped stories about reopening abandoned spaces, co‑creating with neighbours, and reinventing work in places where “nothing ever happens” until someone decides to make it happen. It felt like sitting with Europe’s imagination engines.

For us at Rooral, it was a needed reminder: we are not alone. There is a whole ecosystem of hubs turning urban and rural spaces into laboratories of the future. And each time we meet, we raise the tide a bit more for everyone.

Low‑tech communication. High‑impact stories

One of the core learnings that we are bringing back to Benarrabá is surprisingly simple:

"You do not need complex strategies to communicate who you are. Just honest side projects and the courage to press play."

Through exercises and examples, the workshop kept returning to the same idea: low‑tech, high‑soul.​​

Three insights stayed with us:

1. Do side projects that speak about who you are and what you care about. A small zine, a mini‑documentary, a local postcard collection, a mixtape, a village map drawn by hand. These pieces tell your story more honestly than any polished campaign.​

2. Start before you feel ready. Perfectionism is just another way of staying silent. Hit record. Press publish. Hang the poster. You can iterate later. The important thing is that your voice and view exists in the world.

3. Involve your community. Communication is not just outward facing. It is also inward, strengthening the bonds between people who share the same project, street or region.​

At Sende, nothing felt over‑designed, yet everything felt intentional. That contrast is the best definition of low‑tech communications we have found so far. Minimal tools, maximum meaning.

Why rural hubs matter more than ever

Coming back from Sende, we feel even more convinced that rural hubs are not a side note in Europe’s cultural landscape. They are leading chapters.

They show that a small village can host global conversations on culture, innovation, arts, sustainability ands remote work, while still keeping the neighbour’s cat as a regular visitor to the meetings.

For Rooral, this workshop was both a mirror and a compass.

A mirror, because it reflected the values we care about: community, impact and love for villages.

A compass, because it pointed again towards something essential: keep things human, keep them simple. Keep telling the story of why right now rural areas are among the most exciting places to imagine the future.

Have a look to the previous ECHN workshop we attended on how rural coliving & coworking can increase their impact. Read it here.

Thank you to the expanding humans we shared these days, rain and questions with. Alba Fernandez Arias (España, Espazo A Maceta), Alexa Pires (Portugal, Maak Cowork Space), Maria do Céu Bastos (Portugal, Nowhere Desk), Agustín Jamardo (Galicia, Anceu Coliving), Natália Melo (Portugal, ARTERIA LAB), Maruchi, Edo, Sasha y Luis (Galicia, Sende), Katharina Kolakowski (Italia, Weigh Station ETS), Larissa Fliri (Italia, BASIS Vinschgau Venosta), Mirela Marović Omerzu (Croacia, BIZkoshnica Coworking), Tim Worth (Irlanda, Benchspace Cork), Oscar Perez Marcos (España, PAS Coliving), Natalia Aires (España, TRIPLE), Viv Cuthill (Reino Unido, Viv's Coliving), Victor Sanz (España, VUNDU), Relja Bobić (Serbia, Nova Iskra / ECHN) y Vassilis Charalampidis (Grecia, BIOS / ECHN).