Save the date! Decarbonizing Architecture 2026
After the success of the four previous editions, the "Decarbonizing Architecture 2026" conference returns. Save the date: November 5–6!
The climate emergency and the housing crisis directly challenge us as a sector and compel us to rethink the way we design and build.
The shift towards decarbonized and resilient architecture is key to reducing CO2 emissions and ensuring the quality of our homes and buildings, creating more sustainable and healthy spaces that enhance the well-being of their occupants.
It is time to take action and promote a paradigm shift in architecture to respond in a coordinated way to climate and housing challenges.
We look forward to seeing you!
Stay tuned for registration opening
In the meantime, we invite you to explore videos from previous editions, as well as publications, training opportunities and other resources on decarbonization. And soon, the full program details for "Decarbonizing Architecture 2026"! Check out our website
Conference | Maio Architects
Within the cultural programming of the Tarragona Demarcation of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) we have the opportunity to listen to the studio’s conference MAIO Architects, where the architects tell us about the studio’s history and its most relevant projects.
MAIO is an architectural office based in Barcelona that works on spatial systems that allow variation and change through time. MAIO’s projects embrace the changing complexity of everyday-life while providing a resilient, compromised and clear architectural response.
Directed by Maria Charneco, Alfredo Lérida, Guillermo López and Anna Puigjaner, who recently has been nominated finalist of the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Initiative 2016 and awarded with the Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize.
MAIO’s members combine professional activities with academic, research and editorial ones. They have been in charge of the magazine Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme (2011-16), and currently teach at ETH Zurich, the ETSAB/ETSAV (Barcelona), and Elisava – Escola de Disseny i Enginyeria.
MAIO has lectured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Barbican Center, GSAPP-Columbia University, RIBA, UC Berkeley, Yale School of Architecture and Piet Zwart Institute among other places. MAIO’s work has been published in magazines such as Domus, AIT, Volume, Blueprint, A10 and Detail, and exhibited at the MOMA of New York, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Art Institute of Chicago and Storefront for Art and Architecture. MAIO has participated at Venice Biennial 2016 in the Spanish Pavillion, awarded with the golden Lion, at Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015 & 2017 editions) and co-curated a Weekend Special at the Biennale di Venezia 2014 together with SPACE CAVIAR and DPR-Barcelona.
At the end of the conference, there will be a dinner-colloquium with the speakers at the Barhaus restaurant. You can sign up by sending an email to comunicacio.tar@coac.net. Dinner price €24.
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Conference | Trans-Scalar by Mariona Benedito
Within the cultural programming of the Tarragona Demarcation of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) we have the opportunity to listen to the conference TRANS-SCALE, by Mariona Benedito, where the architect talks to us about her most relevant projects.
Architecture unfolds across scales, times and contexts. From ephemeral projects to complex and permanent urban interventions, it is proposed to understand architectural practice as a continuous field where experimentation and responsibility, flexibility and permanence, meet and dialogue. Based on examples of professional practice, research and teaching, the session invites reflection on a trans-scalar attitude that assumes complexity as a design driver.
Mariona Benedito practices architecture in a TRANS-SCALE way, approaching everything from ephemeral or small-scale projects to strategic urban-scale studies, connecting theoretical and research frameworks, professional practice and teaching methodologies.
She is currently co-curator of the next edition of the UIA World Congress to be held in Barcelona in 2026. An architect who graduated from ETSAB-UPC in 2000, with a Diploma in Advanced Studies in Housing from the 40s-60s in Barcelona. Co-founder of the MIM-A architecture studio in 2007, she has been working in her individual practice since 2020. Her work has been awarded with relevant prizes such as the FAD Architecture Prize 2020, the Menció Nova Bauhaus Europea Prize, the Catalunya Construcció Prize, the 4th edition of the Barcelona Architecture Exhibition, the FAD Efímers Prize 2015, she has been a finalist in the XV BEAU and the EU Mies van der Rohe Prize, and selected for the 7th European Landscape Biennial. Mariona Benedito has curated and designed exhibitions such as Architecture, University and Territory or Emergencies at the COAC, Climate Machine at the Ciutadella greenhouse and the EPISODE (2020-2024) conference series at the ETSAV-UPC.
She has been an associate professor of Architectural Projects at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia since 2003, and her Research Workshop has been recognized as a finalist among the best pedagogical initiatives of the XIII BIAU. She is an associate professor and coordinator at the IE School of Architecture and Design in Madrid. She has taught classes and led workshops at various institutions such as ETSALS URL, ETH-Zurich, Fundació UPC, BAU School of Design, Sam Fox School of Design at Washington University in Saint Louis, ESARQ-UIC and ETSAB-UPC.
At the end of the conference, there will be a dinner-colloquium with the speaker at the Barhaus restaurant. You can sign up by sending an email to comunicacio.tar@coac.net. Dinner price €24.
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Conference | Flexo Arquitectura
Within the cultural programming of the Tarragona Demarcation of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) we have the opportunity to listen to the conference of Flexoarquitectura, where the architects tell us about the studio’s history and its most relevant projects.
Flexoarquitectura is a studio founded in 2002 by Tomeu Ramis, Aixa del Rey and Bàrbara Vich, which has been directed by Tomeu Ramis and Aixa del Rey since 2017. A studio based in Barcelona interested in the capacity of any project to make sense within a given cultural context using resources -both conceptual and narrative- and constraints -technical, economic and material- as opportunities from which to build project strategies.
At the end of the conference, there will be a dinner-colloquium with the speakers at the Barhaus restaurant. You can sign up by sending an email to comunicacio.tar@coac.net. Dinner price €24.
#COACTarragona