Annual Report 2018-2019 | UIC Barcelona School of Architecture

Annual Report 2018-2019

uic.es/architecture

Universitat Internacional de Catalunya School of Architecture

Annual Report 2018-2019

uic.es/architecture

Universitat Internacional de Catalunya School of Architecture Campus Barcelona Alfa Building Immaculada, 22 08017 Barcelona T. +34 932 541 800 uic.es/architecture

Contents The School

4

Double Degree & Mobility Programmes

8

Vertical Workshop

10

Foros

16

Cooperation

20

Accessibility

24

Sustainability • CEIM

28

Barcelona Ceramics Chair

32

Exhibitions

36

Awards

44

News

50

Credits

60

The School

4

The School

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture was founded in 1997 —initially known as ESARQ-UIC—, and its DNA, identity and distinctive model have been evolving from that moment onwards. By DNA, we mean the subjects that make up the School’s unique model, subjects that define and reinforce its spirit and philosophy, which is based on three cornestones: taking care of individuals, innovation and contact with industry, and commitment to society. In other words, innovation at the service of people.

Amongst the subjects, workshops and courses we offer, some of the highlights include the compulsory subjects on Cooperation, Accessibility and Sustainability —the latter of which was instigated by the CEIM Chair—; the Vertical Workshop, which consists of a week-long workshop at the beginning of the course where all students work together on a project intended to benefit the community; and lastly, the Foros cycle, a series of conferences that offer students the chance to gain first-hand knowledge of the different methods and philosophies involved in every facet of the field of architecture.

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The School

Commitment to society through compulsory classes on Cooperation, Sustainability and Accessibility The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture aims to produce architects that know and care about the needs of society, the environment and people in general. It is the only architecture school in Spain that teaches compulsory modules on cooperation, sustainability and accessibility. It offers students a comprehensive approach to architectural education, improving competitiveness by encouraging multiple skill sets, teamwork, responsibility, and entrepreneurship.

Individual attention, guidance and coaching Individual attention for students and a comprehensive approach with a focus on social impact are key elements of this programme. The University has a unique teaching method, Integrated Project-based Teaching (DIP), in which each student is tasked with undertaking a project at every step of the process. The subjects are taught in a crossdisciplinary manner to ensure that projects are worked on at every level. This means students learn to work on a project from the ground up, all the way down to the construction details.

Cultural activities with international lecturers and renowned architects The academic format is enriched by numerous workshops and lectures. During the Foros series of lectures, students attend various lectures delivered by prestigious national and international architects.

During the week-long and intense Vertical Workshop, students from all five years of the programme are divided into teams. These teams create sociallyoriented projects using models built on a real-life scale, under the supervision of renowned Spanish architects.

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The School

Cutting-edge technology The School has a modelling studio filled with all kinds of tools and digital machinery (lasers, numerical control machines and 3D rapid prototyping machines), run by an expert who guides the work process.

Architectural prizes Students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture won first prize in the latest editions of the Schindler Spain Architecture Award and Premis Llum BCN 2019, as well as a number prizes at the Cevisama Lab International architectural competitions. Our lecturers have also won various prizes, such as Premis FAD d’Arquitectura 2019.

Classes taught in English An international outlook and mobility and exchange programmes with universities abroad are some of the School of Architecture’s main priorities. Our degree programmes are eligible for recognition in any European Union country and many of our subjects are taught in English.

Work placements at internationally prestigious architectural firms, with an employability rate of 85% The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture has an active work placement programme that helps recent graduates find employment in the field of architecture. In recent years, 85% of our students have found a job after they graduated. The fact we have three Company-Sponsored University Chairs means there are more opportunities to work at companies in different fields of architecture.

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Double Degree & Mobility Programmes Belgium Hogeschool Voor Wetenschap en Kunst / Sint-Lucas Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Université Libre de Bruxelles Université de Liège Université de Mons France École d’Architecture de Normandie École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Montpellier École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Malaquais Université Pierre-Mendès-France, UPMF Finland Oulun Yliopisto Germany FH Münster - University of Applied Sciences Technische Universität Darmstadt Italy Politécnico di Milano Politécnico di Torino

Argentina Universidad Católica de Santa Fe, UCSF Universidad de Belgrano Brazil Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, FAAP Universidade Católica de Goiás, UCG Universidade Católica do Rio Grande Do Sul, PUCRS Chile Universidad del Desarrollo Colombia San Buenaventura Seccional Cali Universidad Nacional de Colombia Mexico Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey Universidad de Monterrey, UDEM Universidad Valle Tlaxcala Panama Universidad Sta. María La Antigua, USMA The United States University of Califronia, Berkeley University of Texas at San Antonio New York Institute of Technology Boston University University of California Los Angeles Harrisburg University, Pennsylvania

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Lithuania Vilnius Academy of Arts Norway Bergen School of Architecture The Czech Republic Brno University of Technology The United Kingdom Architectural Association London (AA) Dublin Institute of Technology University for the Creative Arts, UCA Canterbury University of Coventry

Doble Degree & Mobility Programmes

Through the agreement signed between the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture and the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Universidad de Belgrano (Argentina), students from the two universities are able to study an International Double Degree (PMDT) and obtain two degrees, thus enabling them to work both in Argentina and Europe.

In addition, the qualification from the Universidad de Belgrano is accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the most prestigious international architecture institute in the world.

This accreditation will ensure that students are eligible to study at a postgraduate level or work in the United Kingdom.

The School also has an exchange programme agreements with several universities worldwide.

Australia Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, RMIT Japan Chiba University Kazakhstan Kazakh Leading Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering, KazGASA Syria Arab International University South Korea Seoul Women’s University United Arab Emirates Manipal University Dubai

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Vertical Workshop

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Vertical Workshop

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture’s Vertical Workshop is held over approximately ten days, starting in the first week of the academic year.

It has been one of the School’s most important and iconic events since it was first started in 1997.

The Vertical Workshop at the School of Architecture brings together students from the 1st through to 5th year studies, who are then mixed up into different teams, each led by a pair of renowned young architects from Spain. The teams then work to create a real architecture project based on social aims.

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Vertical Workshop

Vertical Workshop 2018: The Rec Comtal in Vallbona For this new edition of the Vertical Workshop, titled “The Rec Comtal in Vallbona”, students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture built a prototype of urban furniture aimed at enhancing the remains of the Rec Comtal canal in the Barcelona district of Vallbona.

The 22nd edition of the Vertical Workshop was coordinated by the architect and lecturer at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Íñigo Ugalde, and was co-managed by the architects Carles Enrich and Andrés Lupiáñez. Both architects have worked actively on restoring the Rec Comtal in recent years.

The primary focus of the workshop was to study the social and environmental problems in the immediate surroundings of the Rec Comtal as it passes through Vallbona. This diagnosis allowed students to detect the areas that most urgently require work. Proposals for short-term and participatory action were based on the use of recycled materials and waterproof fabric donated a local company, Sedatex.

The Vertical Workshop has always been an important event that represents the spirit of the school, and over recent years it has consolidated and extended its innovative nature.

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Vertical Workshop

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Vertical Workshop

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Vertical Workshop

Reclaiming former agricultural land surrounding the Rec Comtal for local residents in Vallbona was the objective of the winning project: “70m2”, a proposal overseen by the architects Adrià Gaudet and Sandra Torres. The winning project was based on a study of the square metres of free space in Vallbona and how this is proportionate to the number of people living in the neighbourhood. The students behind the proposal suggested assigning a space to each person living in the neighbourhood to reclaim the square metres of land as productive space by using water from the former Rec Comtal canal.

In addition to the winning project, students also produced the following projects: “Have Fun”: this project consisted of designing a fixture that could provide shade and seating for users, as well as the potential for providing a horizontal surface to use for work or to display products.

“Rec productiu” (Productive Rec): students came up with a hanging structure lower than the wall which could be used to hang nests and vegetation.

“Wired”: this installation consisted of a bamboo forest suspended from the bottom of the bridge joining Vallbona with Torre Baró.

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Foros

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Foros

Foros is part of the academic teaching programme at the School. It is a subject that involves debating and reflecting on current architecture and consists of a series of lectures that are open to the public.

The main objective of the subject is to exchange knowledge, approaches and different views between students and lecturers, and it acts as a tool to understand and perceive the discipline of architecture, as well as a platform for events relating to theory and criticism of the work of architects.

Through open lectures given by nationally and internationally renowned guest lecturers, our Foros series aims to provoke questions and discussions on topical issues as well as reflect and debate matters of vital importance to architects.

With support from:

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Foros

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Foros

The 2018 edition of Foros featured the following speakers: Manuel Delgado Ruiz: Full professor of Anthropology at the University of Barcelona (UB). Undergraduate degree in Art History and PhD in Anthropology from the same university. Postgraduate degree in Social Psychology from the Faculty of Medicine at the UB. Postgraduate studies in the Department of Religious Sciences in the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne in Paris. Since 1986, he has been a professor of Religious and Urban Anthropology in the Department of Social Anthropology at the UB. Coordinator of the Social Exclusion and Control Research Group (GRECS) and member of the Anthropology of Urban Conflict Observatory (OACU).

Daniele Giglioli: Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Bergamo. His publications include Tema (La Nuova Italia, 2001); Il pedagogo e il libertino (Bergamo University Press, 2002); All’ordine del giorno è il terrore (Bompiani, 2007); Senza trauma (Quodlibet, 2011); Critica della vittima (Nottetempo, 2014); and Stato di minorità (Laterza, 2015). He is a contributor to the newspapers Corriere della Sera and Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Elisa Valero Ramos: Full professor of Architectural Projects at the Granada School of Architecture.

Recently named winner of the Swiss Architectural Award (2017-2018). She directs the research group RNM909 Efficient Housing and Urban Recycling and is the principal investigator in no less than four different research projects. In addition to the award above, she has won numerous architecture awards in competitions and for built work.

Addenda Architects: This Barcelona-based firm (Roberto González, Anne Hinz, Cecilia Rodríguez, Arnau Sastre and José Zabala) is the company behind the new Bauhaus Museum Dessau in Germany, which will be home to the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s collection. It is due to open in 2019, the centenary year of this iconic German institution. The firm was launched in 2015 and, for the past three years, has worked on the KULeuven Ghent Technology Campus, the Historical Museum in Frankfurt and the most recent edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, among others. Aside from the construction of the Bauhaus Dessau Museum, and prior to the creation of the company, the team members at Addenda Architects had an outstanding track record at national and international competitions.

Louise Lemoine (Bêka&Lemoine): Video-artists, producers and publishers, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine have been working together for the past 10 years, focusing their research primarily on experimenting with new narrative and cinematographic forms in relation to contemporary architecture and urban environment. With interests lying mainly in how the built environment shapes and influences our daily lives, they have developed a highly unique and personal approach which can be defined, in reference to French writer Georges Perec, as an anthropology of the ordinary. Presented by The New York Times as “cult figures in European architecture”, Bêka & Lemoine’s work has been widely acclaimed as “a new form of criticism” (Mark) which “has deeply changed the way of looking at architecture” (Domus).

Nicolas Moreau + Hiroko Kusunoki: Established in Paris in 2011, Moreau Kusunoki Architects inserted itself discreetly into the roster of young architects in France. The duo behind the practice —Hiroko Kusunoki, from Japan, and Nicolas Moreau, from France— express their cultural duality in all the projects they produce, having gained invaluable experience in Japan by working with architects such as SANAA, Shigeru Ban and Kengo Kuma. In the belief that architecture is best conceived in reserve and introspection, the firm instils poetic visions in each of its projects, and a sensitive approach to the use of different scales in its design methodology.

They particularly value the growth of architecture stemming from the infinitesimal scale of materiality and haptic technology to the urban scale.

Josep Lluís Mateo: Undergraduate Degree in Architecture from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB). PhD (with honours) from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He has presented and led courses at some of the world’s top academic and professional institutions. Full professor of Architecture and Design at ETH Zurich. Member of the Ordre des Architectes de Paris, the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA) in Zurich and the Association of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) in Barcelona. His firm, Mateo Arquitectura, is globally active and seeks to connect intelligence and artistic ambition with pragmatism and objectivity. He has won numerous prizes, and has published and exhibited around the world.

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Cooperation

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Cooperation

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture aims to offer subjects with a clear commitment to society, both on its Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture and on its Master’s programmes. For this reason, we offer compulsory Cooperation I and Cooperation II subjects to 4th year students.

The Master’s Degree in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture, a member of the Erasmus Mundus Urbano consortium, is an advanced master’s degree programme that prepares architects to develop and rebuild communities affected by rapid urbanisation, poverty, conflict and natural disasters. It is delivered jointly by four European universities: Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU-Darmstadt) —as the coordinating university for the consortium—, Université Pierre Mendès France (UPMF), the Universita degli Studi Roma Tour Vegata and the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture.

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Cooperation

Fieldtrip 2019: Exploring refugee integration in Thessaloniki, Greece The current humanitarian crisis in the Middle-East has worsened the long process of forced migration over the last few decades. The effect of this mass immigration had an impact on many European countries at an urban scale, due to the rapid influx of refugees. As a result, urban contexts have become important sites to interrogate spaces built by and for refugees in European cities. By adopting a political agenda of closed borders, the EU approach determines and controls the conditions under which thousands of political and economic refugees are now trapped in mainland Greece or detained in camps.

This year, students from the Master’s Degree in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture programme travelled to Thessaloniki, Greece, to explore urban strategies that strive for the social and spatial integration of refugees in a sustainable manner in order to prevent the conflicts that arise from the perceived notion of refugees as an economic and social burden.

Thessaloniki launched its resilience strategy in March 2017, —the first Greek city to undertake a long-term plan — and it may serve as model for the integration of refugees in cities across Europe where many refugees resort to living on the street in the hope of finding work opportunities and a return to normal life.

During the workshop we met with the main NGOs working in the area and shared our analysis and

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Cooperation

proposals with the Thessaloniki municipal group Arrival Cities Urban Response Team. In the workshop, we collaborated with the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO), and were joined by students from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

Students focused on the area around the Thessaloniki Railway station and Michail Kalou street in Thessaloniki, Greece, as a case study to create proposals on how to transform and improve urban voids or ‘areas in urban transition’ by mixing social and physical strategies.

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Accessibility

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Accessibility

One of our subjects that encourages commitment to society is Accessibility. The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture is a national pioneer in terms of incorporating this subject into the curriculum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture as a compulsory subject for 3rd year students, and as a working area for student’s Final Projects.

The initiative is led by renowned architect Enrique Rovira-Beleta, who also directs the Postgraduate Degree in Accessibility and Design for All (online).

This course is the first formal academic initiative that looks at Accessibility from a global perspective and within a cross-disciplinary framework.

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Accessibility

Architecture students help improve accessibility in the Barcelona district of Ciutat Vella Third year students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture presented their projects to improve accessibility in businesses and public buildings to neighbourhood associations and other local organisations in the Pati Llimona Community Centre in the Ciutat Vella district in Barcelona.

This initiative is part of the “Comerç Amic Sense Barreres (CASBA)” project set up by Barcelona City Council in 2013, with the aim of increasing awareness of accessibility and training future architects in this area.

This is the second year that the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture has participated in the CASBA project, at the impetus of professor Enrique Rovira Beleta, director of the Area of Accessibility.

This year, 27 students made interventions in a total of 20 businesses and 3 public buildings located on the shopping streets of Carrer d’Avinyó and Carrer Sant Pere Més Alt. “Students take a guided tour of the neighbourhood, accompanied by people with functional diversity, and sit in a wheelchair to detect the needs in their assigned field of work”, explained

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Clara Santamaria, a representative of Barcelona City Council, at the project presentation event.

After an initial analysis, students further developed their technical proposals and sought solutions based on the criteria of efficiency and sustainability. The projects were recorded by Teresa Caja, from the Association of Traders of Avinyó and Alfòns Solà, from the Association of Neighbours and Trade of Santa Caterina. Representatives from the Sínia Occupational Centre, Vigatans Residence and APIPACAM Foundation also participated in the event.

Neighbourhood representatives thanked students for their work and dedication to people in the neighbourhood with functional diversity. The event ended with the performance by the Casa Candela Flamenco company.

Since 2013, the CASBA project has contributed towards an improvement in accessibility in a number of areas in Barcelona, such as Zona Franca, Creu Coberta, Vallespir, Horta-Guinardó, Sant Andreu and Ciutat Vella.

Accessibility

Accessibility is not only necessary for people with disabilities, but it is also an advantage for all citizens.

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Sustainability CEIM

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CEIM • Sustainability

Another compulsory subject in our architecture programmes, in line with the philosophy of the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, is sustainability.

This subject blends environmental commitment and links between universities and companies, bringing together students and companies from different sustainability sectors supported by the CEIM (Chair in Industrial Construction and the Environment).

With support from the CEIM, the School helps to provide a cross-disciplinary approach and knowledge transfer to its studies. The cross-disciplinary approach seeks to involve representatives from stakeholders in the construction sector. Knowledge transfer is achieved through interaction between the university and manufacturing, engineering and architectural companies, as well as between the different companies themselves. The subjects of Sustainability I and II cover the concepts of energy efficiency, user comfort and the environmental impact of construction.

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CEIM • Sustainability

ROCKWOOL renews its agreement with UIC Barcelona’s CEIM Chair for the eighth year running

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture reaffirms its commitment to designing new uses for porous concrete

The agreement renews the cooperation between the company and the university to develop systems to improve building sustainability.

For the third year running, the School has renewed its agreement with the CEMEX Research and Development Centre in Switzerland.

UIC Barcelona is committed to increasing its social impact by creating university-business chairs that guarantee knowledge transfer to society. This type of agreement is important in order to facilitate exchanges between companies and universities, “an unresolved matter in Spain if we compare ourselves with other countries in Europe”, said Pedro Luis Fernández-Cano, director of ROCKWOOL for Spain and Portugal.

The cooperation agreement involves designing the course “Climate Concrete 3.0”, for architecture students. Between October and February, the students will attempt to demonstrate the enormous potential of porous concrete for improving the energy performance and air quality of buildings. Students will be required to develop a specific formula for concrete and design an improved construction system for the building envelope. They will then develop a full-scale prototype of the proposed system so that laboratory tests can be carried out and the behaviour of the material can be validated. At the end of the subject, a group of students will be chosen to go to Switzerland to take part in a six-day workshop run by CEMEX’s research group in the Alpine country. The agreement was signed within the framework of the Chair in Industrial Construction and the Environment (CEIM) at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture. The chair is sponsored by Pich-Architects and Rockwool Peninsular.

The chair aims to encourage cooperation in the scientific and technological sphere in order to develop new building systems that improve sustainability and respect the environment in refurbishment works and new buildings.

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CEIM • Sustainability

2019 CEIM Awards The awards ceremony was held as part of the event organised to launch the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture’s exhibition of Final Degree Projects.

Jordi Costa received first prize for ‘Barcelona Fashion Foundation: A Textile Industry Colony for Creative, Economic and Cultural Production’, in which he explored new ways of using the old Ca l’Illa textile factory. According to the jury, “this project advocates for the recovery of a lost textile industry through a bioclimatic approach in which recycled materials and air quality drive sustainability in the renovation of buildings”.

Nieves Blakstad took home second prize for her work ‘To the Rescue! A Space for Social and Occupational Integration to Combat Oblivion’, a project that seeks

to reconvert old industrial locations into social and occupational centres for refugees. According to the student, the project “explores the construction of new social housing by renovating old factories and turning them into homes and workshops, community areas, outdoor areas... In short, flats committed to society”.

This year, the jury was made up of lecturers Antoni Solanas and Mauro Manca; Anna Manyes, from the Technical and Development Department at ROCKWOOL Peninsular; Teresa Batlle, architect and director of the studio Pich-Aguilera Architects; and Ignasi Pérez, architect and executive director of the WITS Institute, who was invited to be this year’s special guest.

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Barcelona Ceramics Chair

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Barcelona Ceramics Chair

The Barcelona Ceramics Chair at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture offers an elective Ceramics Chair subject. It provides an opportunity for meetings and engagement between architecture students and ceramics manufacturers. The goal is to undertake a research project in which students produce an innovative ceramic material that is applied to the field of architecture.

At the end of the year, a jury of four prestigious architects and a representative from ASCER will award three prizes to the best projects. Meanwhile, students are also encouraged to present their work at the Indistile CEVISAMA (Feria Valencia), international competition where our School has always managed to be among the winners. Every year the Barcelona Ceramics Chair releases a publication containing a compilation of our students’ work.

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Barcelona Ceramics Chair

Visits to the Rosa Gres factory in Tarragona and the Ricardo Bofill Architecture Workshop Students were able to observe the different production stages for architectural ceramic pieces made by the ceramics company, Rosa Gres.

Students were able to learn about different methods to produce tiles, enamelled stoneware and porcelain stoneware: from mixing raw materials, to shaping pieces (through pressing and extrusion systems), and finally, enamelling. Similarly, students found out about the different quality controls in place for ceramic pieces before they can be distributed and sold on the market. “It’s very important for our students to see and learn about the different production systems of the materials they are going to use as experts, and for them to appreciate the importance of the ceramics industry in our country.

The visit to Rosa Gres will also stimulate their imagination when designing new products for the market. It’s a real privilege for us to be able to visit the premises”, Vicenç Sarrablo stated.

Rosa Gres is a company specialised in manufacturing high-quality ceramic pavements. The company is a member of the Spanish Ceramic Tile Manufacturers’ Association (ASCER), which sponsors the Ceramics Chair at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture.

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The students travelled to the town of Sant Just Desvern near Barcelona to visit the Ricardo Bofill Architecture Workshop, housed in a former cement factory reconverted in the ‘70s, as well as the famous Walden 7 building.

They were accompanied by the director of the chair, Dr Vicenç Sarrablo, along with lecturers Jordi Roviras and Cristina Garcia Castelao as well as architect Hernán Cortés. Cortés is part of the Ricardo Bofill team and was a student of the first edition of the Ceramics Chair in 2004-2005. In addition to the offices, located in the former silos of the factory, the students were taken on a tour showing them the model workshops, the archives, “The Cathedral” (the workshop’s exhibition space) and the surrounding gardens.

After visiting the Ricardo Bofill workshop, the students went to visit the Walden 7 building, one of the most iconic works of architecture in Catalonia from the ‘70s, designed by Ricardo Bofill himself using ceramic materials.

Barcelona Ceramics Chair

Students from the UIC Barcelona Ceramics Chair once again win CevisamaLab awards This is the 15th consecutive year in which our architecture students have managed to leave their stamp at one of the sector’s most prestigious competitions.

Graduate Joan Marc Garcés and students Esther Basterra and Guillermo Marfá, obtained first prize, second prize and a secondary award respectively under category B of the competition. This category covers “Ceramic products formed using other methods”. The awarded projects were exhibited in pavilions 2 and 4 of the Feria Valenciana during the Cevisma event.

Our student Esther Basterra received second prize for her work entitled “Cool Jar”, a ceramic piece which aims to reduce heat through the retention of rain water. The jury underlined “the originality of her technical drainable pavement solution as well as her research into a line of sustainable products for public spaces”.

Another of our students, Guillermo Marfá, received second prize for his project entitled “Solar CEM”, due to “the incorporation of renewable energy and vegetation into a ceramic element to be used for large facades”. Last year Marfá also won in this category after taking first prize for his project entitled “Ceramic Squama”.

This year our graduate Joan Marc Garcés Sabaté won first prize in the same category for his project entitled “Komorebi”. The jury highlighted “the simplicity of the system and the good way he has used light by creating permeable and versatile spaces” in his work. Garcés is a veteran of these awards since it is the third time he has received an award there.

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Exhibitions

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Exhibitions

Throughout the year, the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture participates in and organises exhibitions in well-known venues throughout the city, promoting the social transfer of architecture to wider cultural environments and opening it up to society. Through projects developed in classrooms and then exhibited, the institution supports the central role played by schools of architecture in reflecting on cities and contemporary landscapes.

This also confirms the School’s commitment to exhiting its students’projects beyond the realm of academia.

With support from:

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Exhibitions • 22@_What? How to achieve balance in Northern Poblenou, Barcelona

“22@_What? How to achieve balance in northern Poblenou, Barcelona” revisits the concept of the 22@ Plan twenty years after its creation On Thursday 18 July 2019, the exhibition of Final Degree Projects by final-year students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture was inaugurated in the former Ca l’Alier textile factory, currently the headquarters of the urban innovation centre BITHabitat. Under the title “22@_What? How to achieve balance in northern Poblenou, Barcelona”, the exhibit includes projects carried out by ten 5th year Architecture students, in which they put forward programmes and architectural proposals for the northern section of Barcelona’s Poblenou district.

Divided into three workshops directed by lecturers Iñaki Baquero, Marta García-Orte, Mamen Domingo and Ernest Ferré, the students took an in-depth look at the 22@ Plan, drawn up 20 years ago by the Barcelona City Council in an effort to put the district’s old industrial areas to new use and generate a compact city model in which companies, universities and technology transfer centres could rub shoulders with homes, public facilities and green areas. The students developed their proposals based on the analysis and urban project they carried out last year on 22@ Barcelona as part of the subject Urbanism III, coordinated by lecturers Álvaro Cuéllar and Pere Vall.

The students defended their Final Degree Projects before a panel made up of architect Ferran Grau, Duna Bellmunt, a member of the Association of Architects of Catalonia, and several lecturers from different areas at the School. The public inauguration began with an opening address by David Martínez, director of projects for the BIT-Habitat Foundation and coordinator of the 22@ Committee.

This was followed by a round table discussion featuring experts associated with the development of the 22@ Plan and district representatives, who reflected on the district’s present and future situation.

Participants in the round table, which was moderated by Óscar Guayabero, included Salvador Clarós, president of the Poblenou Residents’ Association; Yolanda Triviño, a representative from Valkiria Hub, a Poblenou-based digital platform focused on innovation in the workplace; and architect Ferran Grau.

The three agreed on the need for new architectural and urbanistic proposals to replace the 22@ Plan’s outmoded patterns and spoke of the need for civil society, universities and political powers to work together to restore the areas in northern Poblenou that require greater flexibility and adaptability.

Once again, the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture has taken on the role that schools and faculties of architecture must play in reflecting on the contemporary city and landscape and has confirmed its commitment to displaying work by its students outside academic circles.

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22@_What? How to achieve balance in Northern Poblenou, Barcelona • Exhibitions

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Exhibitions • 22@_What? How to achieve balance in Northern Poblenou, Barcelona

This publication includes the work carried out during the 20182019 academic year at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture in the workshops for projects by final year students. It analyses the concept of “22@_What? How to achieve balance in northern Poblenou, Barcelona”.

Lecturers: Iñaki Baquero, Marta García-Orte, Mamen Domingo and Ernest Ferré, Álvaro Cuéllar and Pere Vall.

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22@_What? How to achieve balance in Northern Poblenou, Barcelona • Exhibitions

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Exhibitions • LlumBCN “Verd Botella”

Architecture students win the 2019 LlumBCN Awards with their project ‘Verd Botella’ The installation created by the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture for the Llum BCN Festival won First Ex Aequo Prize as part of a project entitled ‘Reflexió’ created in conjunction with BAU Centre Universitari de Disseny of Barcelona. The prize, awarded by the Barcelona Culture Institute, is conferred on the best light installations created by schools of art, design, lighting and architecture in Barcelona.

green and lit inside with low-energy Christmas lights.

The students highlighted the fact that “Recycling is one of the main cornerstones of the project, since it was originally envisioned as an awareness campaign to attract attention to the amount of singleuse plastic we generate. It is a reflection on the importance of our actions in terms of the protecting of the environment”.

The ‘Verd botella’ installation was created by twelve of our students, under the supervision of lecturers Iñaki Baquero and Marta Garcia-Orte. It was located in the Jardí del Sol in Poblenou, and its aim was to fill the sections of the vertical garden that had not yet been filled with plants with the colour green, in a symbolic way. To do so, they used more than one thousand recycled plastic bottles, which were painted

International jury members included Anna Díaz, a visual artist from Hamill Industries studio; Marisol López, cultural manager and director of the Digital Culture Area in the Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (ICEC); Olga Subirós, architect and designer; Martin Posta, director of the Prague Signal Festival; and Valerie Bergeron, director of the Materials Centre of Barcelona (Martefad).

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Ús Barcelona Festival “Jail Lab” at La Model prison • Exhibitions

Architecture students take their proposals for the future of La Model prison to the Ús Barcelona Festival The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture took part in the 2018 edition of the Ús Barcelona Festival.

This edition aimed to find new uses for the former La Model prison, which has been subject to intense debate after it finally closed in June 2017.

More specifically, the School took part in the ‘Jail Lab’ section of the festival with an exhibit made up of work by ten architecture students. These pieces gave careful thought to the future of the prison and showcased specific proposals for its future.

The exhibit was curated by the lecturers Josep Lluis i Ginovart, Juan Trías de Bes, María Barcina and Ana Cocho-Bermejo, and is the result of work carried out last year as part of the subject ‘Design Studio III & IV’. As a preliminary step, the students analysed the physical and emotional past of La Model prison under the supervision of lecturers Josep Lluis, Mónica López and Ricardo Gómez. As a result of this analysis, the students worked on proposals under the supervision of the lecturers curating the exhibit, which were put on display in the prison during the festival. “The future

of the prison should not be played down because the building is intrinsically tied to a series of events which have left a traumatic stamp on the memory of Barcelona society”, explained Juan Trías de Bes. The students’ projects put forward a number of uses for the building, from redeveloping it into social housing, creating a memorial museum or providing the city with a new cultural space. The students approached the project in a number of different ways.

There were proposals envisaging a refurbishment of the whole constructed space and other ones that pushed for a radical redevelopment of the building while keeping some memorial elements from the past to stop the prison’s history from withering in the city’s collective memory”, added Ana Cocho-Bermejo. Ús Barcelona is a festival organised by Rebobinart with the support of Barcelona City Council and the Government of Catalonia. It aims to salvage disused spaces by providing them with new uses through urban art and participation from the general public.

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Awards

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Awards

Over the years, students, alumni, professors and lecturers from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture have been honoured with numerous and prestigious awards from both the national and international scene. The School celebrates each of these achievements and regularly publishes projects that demonstrate the creativity and talent of its community.

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Awards

Archikubik Dipòsit del Rei Martí

Arquitectura-G Empordà Masia

TdB Arquitectura CDS1 House

Blur Arquitectura Concéntrico 01 Caja Mágica

Pich-Architects Col·legi Teresianas de Gaudí

UIC Barcelona School of Architecture LlumBCN, Verd Botella

BCQ Arquitectes Joan Maragall Library

UIC Barcelona School of Architecture XII BEAU Research Awards “Examinarse en el Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña”

Vicenç Sarrablo + Jaume Colom La Llena Horse Riding

Archikubik Parking Saint-Roch

Blur Arquitectura Catedral restaurant

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Agora Arquitectura Refugio para fin de semana

Awards

Flexo Arquitectura Existing Housing Pavilion

Barcelona Ceramics Chair “Barcelona Ceramics” exhibition

Arquitectura-G Luz House

Kathrin Golda-Pongratz “Autoconstrucción. Por una autonomía del habitar“

Agora Arquitectura Caballero House

Jorge Vidal + Victor Rahola + Marcos Catalán Alegre House

Victor Bergnes + Marcos Catalán Mariano House

Addenda Architects Bauhaus Museum Dessau

Albert F. Jové Hestia Brick

BCQ Arquitectes Plaça de Madrid

José Ahedo Wheelwright Prize 2014

UIC Barcelona School of Architecture Urban Plunge: Floating Water

Agora Arquitectura Remodeling of plaza Europa in Santa Olivia

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Awards

UIC alumni José Luis Cisneros and Joan Casals win the 2019 Girona Regions Architecture Award in the ‘Opinion’ category José Luis Cisneros and Joan Casals, UIC Barcelona School of Architecture alumni, came first in the ‘Opinion’ category of the 22nd edition of the Girona Regions Architecture Award 2019.

Cisneros and Casals, who lead the Ágora Arquitectura studio, came out ahead of 64 other entries in the category with their work titled ‘Refugio de fin de semana’. The award was chosen by the public, who voted electronically for their favourite work of architecture out of all the competition entries.

“This award sparks an open debate among the general public, inspiring opinions on the architecture projects in the Girona Regions”, said a spokesperson from the College of Architects. They also received a special mention from the jury in the ‘Architecture’ category,

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again for ‘Refugio de fin de semana’. The jury highlighted the work for its “ability to present itself as an alternative to traditional camping, combining the characteristics of industrial standardisation and reusing of materials from the local area”.

The Girona Regions Architecture Award has been held every year since 1997, and has become a leading event for architecture and construction professionals in the region. The main objective of the awards is to highlight works by architects in the region and to spread awareness of these works among the general public.

Awards

Professor Kathrin Golda-Pongratz wins the 2019 FAD Architecture Award The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture lecturer Kathrin Golda-Pongratz received a 2019 FAD Award in the category of Thought and Criticism for her work as the co-author and co-editor (alongside José Luis Oyon and Volker Zimmermann) of the book Autoconstrucción.

Por una autonomía del habitar. Escritos sobre vivienda, urbanismo, autogestión y holismo (Self-building: Towards autonomy in housing. Writings on housing, urban planning, self-management and holism), published by Pepitas de Calabaza.

The volume contains selected works by the English architect John F. C. Turner (1927) and seeks to offer Spanish-speaking readers a window into hitherto little known aspects of his life and career, such as his reports for international agencies, articles in the

political press and previously unpublished thoughts about the construction of place and the social processes behind the self-building of housing around the world.

The judges for this year’s edition, Roger Miralles, Maria Teresa Blanch and Ivan Blari, highlighted “the book’s timeliness in addressing the debate over public housing by recovering, translating and analysing texts by this little-known English architect and ideologist, focused on experiences from the 1950s and 1970s in Britain, Peru and the US. Although it examines aspects from the past, the book is a tool for current urban planning practice.” A total of 81 works were submitted in the Thought and Criticism category of this year’s edition of the awards.

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News

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News

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture is often a protagonist on the current national and international architectural scene, thanks to its teaching body, students and alumni.

Exhibitions, projects and awards, lectures, interviews: all of this is reflected on a regular basis on the School’s website, which contains a selection of the most important news throughout the year.

Follow @ArchitectureUIC for daily updates:      architecture.uic.es

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News

VISITING SCHOOL

COOPERATION

VIDEO ART

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture is visited by 185 architecture students from Uruguay

UIC Barcelona works with Barcelona Ciutat Refugi to plan proposals for temporary refugee welcome centres

Bêka&Lemoine bring their work to the Filmoteca de Catalunya as part of the UIC Barcelona Foros lecture series

On Monday 12 November, the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture was visited by 185 architecture students from the University of the Republic of Uruguay. For the visit, the School organised a conference titled “Architecture, city and territory. 21st century challenges”, which included participation from lecturers at the School and the director of Barcelona Regional, Josep Bohigas.

On Monday 18 February, an international workshop organised by the UIC Barcelona Master’s in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture was launched at the Pati Llimona Community Centre in the Ciutat Vella district, in collaboration with Barcelona City Council’s programme, Ciutat Refugi (Barcelona, Refuge City).

The aim of the workshop is to provide students with two weeks to assess refugee welcome centres from several countries around the world. Following their analysis, they created their own proposals for reception centres, including accommodation and services for the sustainable integration of refugees in Barcelona.

Video-artists Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine took part in the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture Foros lecture series, in a session held at the Filmoteca de Catalunya. Bêka&Lemoine, whose work is characterised by its use of new audiovisual narratives to analyse contemporary architecture and urban settings, delivered a lecture titled “The Experience of Space”. Through excerpts from their 24 films, they revisited their vast filmography, recently purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).

In his institutional welcome speech, Josep Lluis i Ginovart, the director of UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, emphasised the importance of being able to establish a cultural dialogue with architecture schools in Latin America. “We hope that today’s conference will open a gateway between our two universities and we will look at the possibility of working together to build bridges between our postgraduate programmes and teacher and student exchange opportunities”, the director of the School said.

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During the first week, master’s students joined another 40 students from the Mundus Urbano Master’s, a joint programme coordinated by four European universities: UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany), Université Pierre Mendès Grenoble (France) and Universitá Tor Vergata Roma (Italy). In total, 65 international students were involved in the initiative.

In the lecture, the video-artists explained how they got started in the world of cinema and discussed the process of producing their first film, Koolhaas Houselife (2013), which explores the daily routine of the cleaning lady at one of Dutch architect Rem Koolhass’ most iconic houses.

The video-artists also referred to the lines of work that guide their productions. Following the lecture, attendees were treated to a screening of two of the chapters from: Homo Urbanus, a series that takes an in-depth look at urban life in seven cities around the world.

News

ANNIVERSARY

ART

MEDAL OF HONOUR

The University Master’s Degree in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture will celebrate the 10th anniversary

The artist Cinta Vidal unveils a mural at UIC Barcelona

Architect Carme Pinós visits the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture

On 29 May, the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture celebrated the 10th anniversary of the University Master’s Degree in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture. This academic programme, the first of its kind in the Spanish university system, is intended primarily for architects, urban planners, geographers and engineers and looks to train experts in the development, design and management of global cooperation and sustainable development projects.

Since its launch ten years ago, 202 students from 58 countries around the world have taken this master’s degree. In the words of its director, Dr Carmen Mendoza Arroyo, “The value of this programme lies in the interdisciplinary approach we provide, which enables future professionals to gain experience in the reconstruction and development of communities afflicted by poverty, armed conflict or natural disasters, from an urban to an architectural scale”.

The rector of UIC Barcelona, Dr Xavier Gil, unveiled the work ‘Universitas’, painted by the artist Cinta Vidal, on the Barcelona Campus of the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona).

The project was carried out in two separate spaces at the university: the entrance gate on the Barcelona Campus and the front facade of the Aula Magna. The mural depicts the university as a space where knowledge is created, using a dynamic composition that plays with the perspective and gravity of the elements. The different disciplines taught at UIC Barcelona and education in general are portrayed, along with the diversity of the university community.

The initiative was carried out in collaboration with the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture and is part of the UIC Barcelona project ‘Impars’, supporting contemporary art and promoting the talent of the creative community.

Architect Carme Pinós visited the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture in the company of its director, Josep Lluis i Ginovart, and part of the School’s teaching staff: Guillem Carabí, Diego Navarro, Ana Cocho-Bermejo, Alberto T. Estévez and Marta García-Orte. During her tour of the School, Carme Pinós also stopped in to see the 5th-year architecture students’ Final Degree Projects and speak with the students.

Afterwards, Carme Pinós collected the 2019 Medal of Honour from the Vives University Network, a distinction awarded by 22 universities from Catalanspeaking territories, which acknowledges the recipients’ career achievements and commitment to science and culture. The award ceremony took place in the University’s Aula Magna and was presided by Xavier Gil, the rector of UIC Barcelona, in his role as president of the Vives Network during this past academic year.

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News

DIEGO NAVARRO

JELENA PROKOPLJEVIC

ANA COCHO-BERMEJO

Dr Diego Navarro takes part in the 36th edition of the eCAADe conference held in Poland

Lecturer Jelena Prokopljevic takes part as a jury member in the ‘A Cel Obert’ festival in Tortosa

Ana Cocho-Bermejo takes part in the EURAU congress

Diego Navarro, lecturer at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, took part in the 36th edition of the international eCAADe conference (Education and research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe).

Navarro gave a speech on 20 September about smart cities, co-authored with Dr Ana CochoBermejo and PhD student Zeynep Birgonul. “Unilateral appropriation of the term ‘smart city’ for commercial purposes by industry may have a negative impact on a city, encouraging methods where non-academic agents have full control of the design of a city. This, in turn, leads to more complex issues, such as sociology, urban design or architectural synthesis being omitted”, Diego Navarro explained. In order to avoid these dangers, Diego Navarro made clear in his speech the need for city management to be steered by academia, creating interdisciplinary groups which will analyse, propose and theorise on the recent discipline of the ‘Science of Cities’.

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The idea behind the event, which this year celebrated its 5th edition, is to turn Tortosa into an epicentre of creation, promote the city’s architectural heritage and bring ephemeral art to the public at large. To do so, various teams of artists, architects and designers worked to create ephemeral installations which sought to establish a dialogue between traditional architecture and contemporary art.

“The festival adds to Tortosa’s selection of cultural and tourism activities, opening the doors of its courtyards to the general public. Many of these spaces, all of which are steeped in history, are closed to public for the rest of the year. In this sense, the festival is a great chance to discover this cultural heritage, which is full of art”, stated Prokopljevic.

Ana Cocho-Bermejo, lecturer at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, took part in the 9th edition of the European Research in Architecture and Urbanism (EURAU) congress, organised by the University of Alicante under the title “Retroactive Research: Architecture’s capacity to challenge and extend the limits of other disciplines”.

As part of the congress, Ana Cocho presented a paper entitled “Urban Design vs. Science of Cities: From the Digital Gap to the Artificial Intelligence Barrier”, which she coauthored alongside fellow School lecturer Diego Navarro.

During the presentation, Ana Cocho-Bermejo discussed the challenges that the implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms in city design poses for architects and urban designers. “By looking at the process of change from the digital gap to the artificial intelligence barrier, you see most projects are being led by small groups of researchers in Western countries. The studies performed thus far are based on individual samples that do not take into account factors such as age, race or social condition”, remarked Cocho-Bermejo.

News

JOSEP LLUIS I GINOVART & MÓNICA LÓPEZ

CARMEN MENDOZA

GUILLEM CARABÍ

Josep Lluis i Ginovart and Mónica López Piquer take part in the ICOFORT international conference 2018

Carmen Mendoza analyses the challenges of humanitarian architecture in Lisbon

Guillem Carabí takes part in the lecture series on Josep M. Jujol in Els Pallaresos (Tarragona)

Carmen Mendoza-Arroyo took part in the 8th International Conference on Building Resilience held in Lisbon. Mendoza presented a paper entitled “Creating social and spatial integration frameworks: overcoming the emergency approach to urban refugee reception models” in which she presented new approaches to integrate refugees in cities. “The refugee camp model is unsustainable and, when implemented, it calls into question whether architects and designers are not only helping perpetuate their state of emergency, but also abetting governments and the policies keeping them in power,” she explained.

Lecturer Guillem Carabí took part in the lecture series titled “Jujol Year 140/70: Jujol and His Mark on the Tarragona Region”, organised by the Trencadís Foundation in cooperation with Tarragona City Council.

The director of the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Josep Lluis i Ginovart, and lecturer Mónica López Piquer were conference speakers at the “International Scientific Committee on Fortifications and Military Heritage” (ICOFORT) organised by the Friends of Montjuïc Castle Association and the Spanish Ministry of Defence.

The international conference took place between 14 and 17 November and was held in the iconic fortress of Castell de Sant Ferran near Figueres.

Josep Lluis i Ginovart and Mónica López Piquer gave a talk on the first day entitled “The concept of modern machinery amongst Spanish military engineers of the 18th century”. In this speech, they presented their findings from an exhaustive study analysing over 74 projects carried out by military engineers to construct powder kegs between 1715 and 1798. The study draws attention to the fact that some of these projects did not use pointed arches nor barrel arches and comes up with the hypothesis that the option chosen by the engineers was to use elliptic, oval or catenary arches.

Mendoza also served as a member of the jury of the first edition of the Marielle Franco CommunityDesign Award, whose winner was announced during the conference.

The award aims to recognise the daily work of architects working in marginal neighbourhoods or disadvantaged areas. The award is named after the Brazilian sociologist and politician, Marielle Franco, recently killed on the streets of Rio de Janeiro for her activism to help the lower income population in Brazil.

Carabí’s presentation, which took place in the Jujol Centre in the town of Els Pallaresos and was entitled “Casa Bofarull”, gave an in-depth analysis of the 30-year renovation project (1913-1933) carried out by the Tarragona-native architect Josep Maria Jujol on this old 16thcentury farmhouse. According to the lecturer at UIC Barcelona, “Jujol’s project singles out the home vertically and develops it horizontally. A double motion that intimates the surrounding landscape and provides geometry, colour and textures, inverting the natural behaviour of the materials”.

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News

A. T. ESTÉVEZ, K. CHU & P. BAQUERO

PEDRO CASARIEGO

ENRIQUE ROVIRA-BELETA

Teaching staff from the Master’s Degree in Biodigital Architecture, Alberto T. Estévez, Karl Chu and Pablo Baquero, help organise a congress in Qatar

Pedro Casariego publishes two articles in Thin Walled Structures, a first quartile journal according to JCR

Enrique Rovira-Beleta contributes to the White Book on Sports for Disabled People in Spain

Pablo Baquero, lecturer at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture’s Master’s Degree in Biodigital Architecture, was one of the organising members of the international congress Game, Set & Match IV Qatar (GSM4Q). In addition, the director of the master’s degree, Alberto T. Estévez, and another lecturer, Karl Chu, were also appointed members of the conference’s scientific committee. The event was organised by Qatar University and the Qatar National Research Foundation.

The 4th edition of this international congress was held under the title “Connecting People, Spaces and Machines: The Informed Nomadic Monad” and will address a number of specific yet closely related subjects, such as distributed climates, robotic buildings, informed materials and smart environments, among other things.

All these fields of knowledge tie into the research lines explored by the Genetic Architectures Research Group, which Alberto T. Estévez himself directs at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture.

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The assistant director of Academic Affairs and Teaching Staff at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Pedro Casariego, recently published two articles in the journal Thin Walled Structures, ranked in the first quartile by Journal Citation Report (JCR), entitled “Analytical study of flat and curved trapezoidal cold formed steel sheets by means of the Yield Line Theory. Part 1: Flat sheets without transverse corrugations” and “Part 2: Curved sheets with transverse corrugations”.

The object of study is selfsupporting arches made by press-forming cold formed steel trapezoidal sheeting. These arches, which are self-supporting, are produced by press-forming commercial steel deck profiles into curved panels, creating a structural arch. Once the panel has been produced, it is brought to the construction site, where it is installed directly onto the structure’s main beams. These arches are highly competitive, as they are thin, with a thickness of between 0.6 and 1.2 mm, yet can span distances of up to 9 metres without the need for joists.

Enrique Rovira-Beleta, director of the Postgraduate Degree in Accessibility and Design for All, recently published the chapter “Accesibilidad en la práctica deportiva de las personas con discapacidad: diagnóstico” (Access to Sports for People with Disabilities: Diagnosis).

This publication takes a comprehensive look at the baseline situation and proposes ways, in the form of policies and public strategies, to improve the access, extension and enjoyment of sport as a social asset for all people.

The chapter authored by Rovira-Beleta talks about the requirements that should be taken into account when designing sports facilities and the most common difficulties faced by the elderly and/or people with disabilities when accessing or engaging in sport. It identifies the different dimensions for people in manual, motorised and sports wheelchairs, as well as the needs of people with sensory (sight and/or hearing) and cognitive (intellectual and/or mental) disabilities.

News

FREDY MASSAD

ALFONS PUIGARNAU

KATHRIN GOLDA-PONGRATZ

Fredy Massad analyses the impact of populism on media strategies in architecture while in New York

Alfons Puigarnau presents the influence of Nietzsche’s philosophy on the Mnemosyne Atlas by Aby Warburg in Croatia

Professor Kathrin GoldaPongratz wins 2019 FAD Architecture Award

Fredy Massad, lecturer on Architectural Theory at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, participated in the Mundaneum XII 2019: Pan Americas conference. The conference was held in the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College in New York. Massad gave a talk entitled: “The Populist Effect: Post-Truth Architecture”, in which he analysed the impact of neo-populism at a global scale on media strategies in architecture from a critical point of view, as well as the consequences this has in terms of thought.

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture lecturer on Critical Thinking and Aesthetics, Alfons Puigarnau, participated in the 13th International Conference of Iconographic Studies organised by the University of Rijeka (Croatia) together with the universities of Macerata (Italy), Sapienza (Italy) and Split (Croatia).

During his talk, Fredy Massad also underlined the need to reinforce the professional role of the architectural critic, an idea which he presented in his essay entitled ‘Crítica de choque’ (Shock criticism), recently published in Spain by Qut Ediciones. “The essential message of my talk is to defend the need to establish individual and rigorous criteria for reflection on architecture.

Based on this criterion it is possible to achieve a critical and responsible position that strongly challenges ‘like’ and ‘influencer’ culture and neo-populist narratives” said the lecturer.

Alfons Puigarnau presented a talk called “Aby Warburg and the Nietzsche effect”, where he delved into the influence that the German philosopher’s theories had on the work of Aby Warburg, founder of the Kulturwischenschafte Bibliotek, in London today. The UIC Barcelona lecturer therefore analysed the famous Mnemosyne Atlas, the key artistic historiography work that was the focus of Warburg’s final years and that continues to be controversial today, because of the complex iconographic analogies that the German historian outlined at the beginning of the last century.

Puigarnau also took a closer look at the different interpretations that Nietzsche and Warburg had on the concept of the “future life of Antiquity”.

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture lecturer Kathrin Golda-Pongratz received a 2019 FAD Award in the category of Thought and Criticism for her work as the co-author and coeditor (alongside José Luis Oyon and Volker Zimmermann) of the book ‘Autoconstrucción. Por una autonomía del habitar. Escritos sobre vivienda, urbanismo, autogestión y holismo’ (Selfbuilding: Towards autonomy in housing. Writings on housing, urban planning, self-management and holism), published by Pepitas de Calabaza.

The volume contains selected works by the English architect John F. C. Turner (1927) and seeks to offer Spanish-speaking readers a window into hitherto little known aspects of his life and career, such as his reports for international agencies, articles in the political press and previously unpublished thoughts about the construction of place and the social processes behind the selfbuilding of housing around the world.

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News

STUDY

STUDY

GRANT

A study involving UIC Barcelona provides the framework for assessing the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation into cities

A UIC Barcelona study highlights the use of evolutionary computation to improve the urban fabric

The Teaching Innovation Classroom awards innovation in the classroom

Furthering the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies is one of the major challenges currently facing cities when it comes to developing climate action plans. Lorenzo Chelleri, lecturer at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, recently published a paper titled “Analytical framework to evaluate the level of integration of climate adaptation and mitigation in cities” in the prestigious journal Climate Change, alongside four other international researchers.

After two years of research, the study presents an assessment framework that makes it possible to analyse the level of integration of the mitigation and adaptation policies laid out in cities’ local climate action plans.

Recent studies show that a lack of synergies between these two policy areas –mitigation and adaptation– can undermine urban planning, prompting conflicts between objectives and lost opportunities in the struggle against climate change.

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The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture lecturers Ana Cocho-Bermejo and Diego Navarro recently published the study “Urban-Tissue Optimization through Evolutionary Computation” in the top-quartile journal Mathematics, indexed by Journal Citation Reports Science Edition. Mohammed Makki, a researcher at the Architectural Association of London, also participated in the research.

In their paper, the lecturers propose using multi-objective genetic algorithms to analyse the master plan of Barcelona’s Eixample district in order to achieve a more heterogeneous and flexible urban fabric. “The use of computation facilitates the solution of complex problems, such as architectural or urban design”, the authors explained.

“In fact, the range of possible solutions is apparent in the conflict of the city’s design, the contradictory objectives that make it up and that require us to position ourselves with regard to the city we love.”

Three different lecturers from different faculties received financial aid from the Teaching Innovation Classroom in order to carry out the innovative initiatives they had put forward in the classroom.

One of the main objectives of the Teaching Innovation Classroom at UIC Barcelona is to promote lecturers’ initiatives so they can implement innovative proposals that help towards improved teaching and student performance.

In that sense, for the first time the Classroom has awarded financial aid to promote the aforementioned initiatives.

The following professors and departments were awarded: Dr Mireia Hoyos, from the Department of Basic Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine and Basic Sciences; Dr Diego Navarro, from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture; and Dr Olatz Larrea, from the Faculty of Communication Sciences.

News

NEW MASTER’S DEGREE

UNIVERSITY MASTER’S DEGREE RANKING

First edition of the International Master’s Degree in City Resilience Design and Management

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture’s Master’s Degree in International Cooperation climbs to second in the Ranking of University Master’s Degrees by the newspaper El Mundo

The inaugural session of the first edition of the International Master’s Degree in City Resilience Design and Management run by UIC Barcelona School of Architecture and the Urban Resilience Research Network (URNet) took place on 1 October. The ceremony was held in the morning at the UN-Habitat offices (one of the international partners of the master’s degree), located in the modernist building of the former Sant Pau hospital.

Lorenzo Chelleri, director of the programme, welcomed the first intake of students coming from countries like France, Italy, the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica and Namibia. Rosa Suriñach, Partnerships, Advocacy and Outreach Coordinator at the organisation’s Barcelona offices, spoke on behalf of UN-Habitat: “UN-Habitat works in close partnership with UIC Barcelona and the Urban Resilience Research Network”.

The new Master’s Degree in City Resilience Design and Management is an educational programme developed by the Urban Resilience Research Network (URNet).

This is the imost prestigious international research network on urban resilience with the highest level of impact on a global scale. The programme has a strong international focus, is multidisciplinary and is mainly aimed at students and city practitioners interested in learning governance models and management tools appropriate to integrating sustainability and urban resilience while contributing to the hard task of implementing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

For the fourth straight year, the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture has claimed a position in the ranking of the Best Spanish University Master’s Degrees for 2019, created by the newspaper El Mundo. More specifically, the School ranks second in the category of Design and Architecture with the Master’s Degree in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture, which has climbed one position over the previous year and continues in the top 5.

According to El Mundo, one of the most outstanding aspects of this master’s programme are the field trips the students go on each year to different parts of the world, normally underdeveloped regions, to cooperate on an existing project for a certain period of time.

According to Carmen Mendoza, “This new position as the second best master’s degree in the category of Design and Architecture recognises the excellent level of not only our national and international teaching staff, but also the programme’s coordinators and content. It also acknowledges a master’s degree that looks beyond the conventional topics of architecture and, through design, strives to exalt its social and service-oriented aspects in complex contemporary settings, which for me is an incentive”.

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Credits Publication

With support from:

UIC Barcelona School of Architecture Editors Marcos Doespiritusanto Anne-Sophie de Vargas Editorial Design Anne-Sophie de Vargas Translations and proofreading Hannah Bestow Communications Department at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture Marcos Doespiritusanto Selena Ramos

All rights reserved © Publication and texts, 2019 UIC Barcelona School of Architecture Immaculada 22, 08017 Barcelona www.uic.es/architecture © Images, 2019 Their authors Cooperation © Russell Watkins/Department for International Development Accessibility © ONCE 22@_What? How to achieve balance in northern Poblenou, Barcelona © Jesús Arenas Exhibitions’ graphic design: Eva Minguella Estudi 60

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture is committed to the intellectual, professional and personal growth of all those who form part of it.

The School of Architecture has strongly invested in a teaching model based on individual attention, practical learning based on bringing in all areas of knowledge, cutting-edge technology and teaching staff with international experience in order to train architects to be able to tackle the challenges posed by society.

Universitat Internacional de Catalunya School of Architecture Campus Barcelona Alfa Building Immaculada, 22 08017 Barcelona T. +34 932 541 800