5 minute read
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.
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Architecture students defend their Final Degree Projects (TFGs) addressing the new urban definition of the industrial estate Carretera del Mig (Hospitalet de Llobregat)
In July, 5th year students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture defended their Final Degree Projects. The students’ projects intervened in the Carrer del Mig industrial estate, located in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, a clear example of an urban perimeter characterised by obsolete industrial activity and is in need of a contemporary approach to rethinking the role of infrastructures and integrating the countrycity duality from an ecological perspective. To this end, the students proposed new uses for the area ranging from the conversion of old industrial buildings to collaborative housing, the freeing up of industrial land and the recovery of agricultural uses or the generation of a new network of cultural facilities.
The director of UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Josep Lluís i Ginovart, opened the event, ifor which the jury was made up of TFG teaching staff, architect Iñaki Alday, dean of Tulane School of Architecture (New Orleans), Duna Bellmunt, member of the Board of Governors of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) and Justo Orgaz, president of the Green Building Council Spain.
CEIM Sustainability Awards For the 8th successive year, the CEIM Sustainability Awards were given out, organised by the Chair in Industrial Construction and the Environment and aimed at promoting sustainability and innovation in the construction sector. The first prize went to student Cristian Lopez for his project “I walk too”, the jury stressed, “for a profound development of various sustainability issues, in this case especially of energy efficiency and the ability to incorporate it into architecture in a comprehensive way”. Student Ariadna Rodríguez de San Gregorio won the second prize for her project “AgriCultural”, of which the jury highlighted “her contribution in the field of social sustainability”.
Schindler Accessibility Awards As part of the defence of the Final Degree Projects, the 8th Schindler España Accessibility Awards were also made, which are awarded to the three best projects that, due to their quality, innovation, originality and creativity, highlight the solutions facilitating universal mobility and accessibility. The first prize went to student Héctor Muñoz Andrés, for his project “Mobility Buffer”. The second prize went to student Cristian Lopez for his project “I walk too” and the third prize went to student Manuel Gomis for his project “Stitching Bellvitge Together”.
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 reaffirmed its commitment to displaying work by its students outside academic circles.
This publication includes the work carried out during the 20192020 academic year at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture in the workshops for projects by final-year students. It analyses the concept of “Hybrid Urbanism. Designing Complex Territories as Social Condensers”. Lecturers: Iñaki Baquero, Álvaro Cuéllar, Ferran Grau and Miquel Lacasta.
Architecture students take part in the Llum BCN Festival with an idea based on energy self-consumption
UIC Barcelona School of Architecture has again participated in this year’s Llum BCN festival, organised by the Barcelona City Council Institute of Culture. Over the three days, a total of 57 locations were transformed with light, digital technology and moving images. In the festival’s 6th year, visual artists from around the world took part, and as many as 17 art, design and architecture schools from across Catalonia.
Thirteen UIC Barcelona School of Architecture students, tutored by lecturers Marta Garcia-Orte and Iñaki Baquero, created the installation “Feria Climática” based on reusing materials and the principle of energy consumption. The lecturers explained how “it’s an interactive game that allows users to uncover a series of messages on the subject of the environment and the fight against climate change. A recycled stationary bicycle transmits energy to an electrical circuit, which triggers different lines of light that run across the building’s façade. The messages are displayed as a result of the effort made by participants, in an installation that is entirely self-sufficient”, explained the teachers.
How many years fit into twenty years? The answer to this question would not be the same if answered by a geologist, a musician, or a politician. When we pose the question in architectural terms, it seems that time has an elongated behaviour, which often stretches when the deadline to deliver projects arrives. The same happens with the memories that make up our experiences, which are somehow invented each time we recall them.
Hopscotch, learning Architecture in 20 jumps covers the twenty years of the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, highlighting the interactions between people, ideas, and projects in relation to time and scales. It is inspired by the book Cosmic View. The Universe In 40 Jumps, by Kees Boeke, by the documentary Powers of Ten written and directed by Charles and Ray Eames, and of course, by in Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch, a book that invites the reader to various different and complementary readings, “jumping” from one chapter to another.
By questioning the scales of human interactions intertwined with different kind of connections, we are also asking “What are we? Where do we live? Who are our neighbours?” not only as architects, but mainly as co-inhabitants of places in which other human and non-human agents negotiate their agency, and their right to exist.
