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.

The 16th Ceramics Chair focuses on the use of ceramic products for solar control in buildings

This year’s event was based on the theme of solar control and the Architecture students’ work was centred on the development of projects with ceramic prototypes that reduce glare and overheating in buildings with a significant amount of glazing on their facade.

As part of the session, 26 fourth-year Architecture students presented the projects they had been working on for the last few months to the panel. The members of the jury for the 16th year of the awards were Fermín Vázquez, from b720 Arquitectos, Antoni Barceló, from Barceló&Balanzo Arquitectes, Silvia Brandi, from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), Pedro Bronchal, representative of INALCO and Eve Pedrajas, head of business communication of the Spanish Association of Tile Manufacturers (ASCER). The director of UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Josep Lluís i Ginovart, and the director of the Chair, Vicenç Sarrablo, were also present, alongside the coordinators and lecturers Cristina Garcia-Castelao and Jordi Roviras.

The award for the Laminatges (“Laminates”) category went to Valentina Risemberg for her project, Ojiva (“Ogive”), which the jury considered showed the “adequate systematisation of a building design that is very consistent through all its stages of development.” “Orizuru” by Nino Mgeladze, was the winner in the Plegades, doblegades (“Folded, doubled”) category, because “it is based on a complex idea in terms of concept and form, taking the idea of origami as a starting point, with a result that is poetic and real at the same time”. Lastly, in the Volumètriques (“Volumetrics”) category, the prize went to Olivia Sarrà Gómez’s project “Versus”, which the jury highlighted “achieves a rich and flexible piece based on an economy of means, and generates a lattice system applicable to other projects”.

Students from the UIC Barcelona Ceramics Chair once again win prizes at the CevisamaLab awards

This is the 16th consecutive year in which Architecture students from the Ceramics Chair have been awarded prizes at the prestigious ceramics design competition.

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture has once again left its mark at the prestigious ceramics design competition. Students from the Ceramics Chair, directed by Vicenç Sarrablo, along with lecturers Jordi Roviras and Cristina García Castelao, were repeat winners for the 16th year in a row.

Student Marc Farrés won first prize in Category A, “Ceramic products shaped by semi-dry pressing”. The winning project, Hèlix, involves the creation of a system of ceramic pieces to filter light inside glass buildings. The jury highlighted the fact that it “is a rational and functional application of ceramic elements, a flexible system that allows pieces to be changed or modified over time, creating various aesthetic patterns, as well as filtering sunlight in different ways”. Student Guillermo Marfà won first prize in Category B, “Ceramic products shaped through other means”. His project, Greenbrick, is a multifunctional piece that, in his own words, “is as much a lattice, as it is a covering for a façade, a weight-bearing wall or a planter”. This is the third year in a row that Marfà has won a prize in this competition.

Finally, student Lucciana Viteri won second prize in Category B for her project ‘Estalactita’. The jury highlighted the fact that “the reinvention of a traditional extruded piece creates an aesthetic interplay that can be adapted to all types of façades to regulate sun exposure, according to the wishes of the designer”.