DIVERSE CATALAN STUDIOS, WINNERS OF THE FAD AWARDS 2022
The ceremony for the FAD Awards for Architecture and Interior Design took place on Tuesday 14 June at Disseny Hub Barcelona.
The FAD Award for Architecture went to the project Llacuna, by Arquitectura-G (Jonathan Arnabat, Jordi Ayala-Bril, Aitor Fuentes, Igor Urdampilleta and Albert Guerra). The winning work is a city-based project for a block located on an irregular corner in Barcelona's Poblenou district. The jury considered very positively how the project "exquisitely solves the difficult issue of a corner plot, of irregular geometry, placing the cylindrical communication nucleus at the centre of gravity" and valued the relations generated with the city: "a work of sense, sensitivity and conceptual clarity. A delicate commitment to a continuity of compositional tradition where beauty, respect and logic organise a whole".
The award for the City and Landscape category went ex aequo to Eduard Callís and Guillem Moliner for Bon dia, Carme!. The jury valued this project's reactivation of the Plaça del Carme in Olot as "a combination of a sum of strategies that goes beyond urban development. The ground floors are incorporated as an essential asset of the public space, and draw a new transition scenario, favouring public use over private. It is a sum of interventions that act on the commercial abandonment of ground floors and the degradation of central neighbourhoods, a common situation in many medium-sized cities".
In the Ephemeral Interventions category, the award went to the project Agrilogística, by Estudio Goig (Miquel Mariné and Pol Esteve). The project creates the framework for the presentation of the film by the artist Gerard Ortín, which deals with the role of greenhouses in the ecological transformation and the future of food production, a subject that did not leave the jury indifferent, as the installation "amplifies the projection inside a greenhouse where the materials and solutions enhance the message and the experience of the film, inviting reflection".
Finally, in the International category, the project Air/Aria/Aire, by Olga Subirós, won the award ex aequo. The jury valued "the forcefulness of the architectural gesture in a context of exhibition hall interventions that often abuse them" and considered "the link between the formal and environmental characteristics of the hall and the content it conveys" to be "very successful".
Opinion Awards
Every year, the FAD Awards finalists and the ArquinFAD members vote for winners of the Opinion Award in the different categories. This year, the City and Landscape Opinion Award also went to the project Bon dia, Carme! and the Ephemeral Interventions Opinion Award to Agrilogística.
FAD Awards juries
The jury for the FAD Awards for Architecture and Interior Design was chaired by the architect Inés Lobo, accompanied by Paloma Cañizares, Josep Puigdomènech, Pep Quilez, Maria Rubert de Ventós and Jorge Vidal. The jury for the FAD Awards for Thought and Critique was chaired by architect Marta Llorente with members Kathrin Golda-Pongratz and Alessandro Scarnato. As for the FAD International Awards, the jury was chaired by architect Carme Pinós with Pere Buil and Diane Gray as members.
To see the rest of the winning projects, visit the ArquinFAD website.
NEW GOVERNING BOARD TAKES OFFICE
On 15 June, the members of the new COAC Governing Board took office.
The Board is headed by the COAC dean, Guim Costa Calsamiglia, with Gemma Ferré Pueyo as secretary, Imanol Montero Viar as treasurer, and Inés de Rivera Marinelo, Greta Tresserra Sans and Pep Quílez Soler as members. The Board is complemented with a team comprising the presidents of the regional branches: Sandra Bestraten Castells (Barcelona), Claudina Relat Goberna (Comarques Centrals), Elena Rosales Castellà (Ebre), Marc Riera Guix (Girona), Lluís de la Fuente (Lleida) and Jordi J. Romera (Tarragona).
More profession, more prestige, more COAC
The new Governing Board assumes leadership of the COAC with the commitment to work to improve the future of the professional group through an association that is more open to everyone: one that is innovative, well-rounded, inclusive and that serves as a benchmark.
One of the aims is to better the situation and practices of the profession itself, with a focus on strengthening COAC services to make them more efficient and easily accessible; improving public tendering procedures through their simplification and to ensure equal opportunities; encouraging training, innovation and refresher courses to promote employment; promoting gender inclusion and supporting new generations by listening to the experiences of those that went before them.
There is also a firm desire to get back the prestige once held by profession and architecture itself. Therefore, work will be done to improve society's perception of the architect, a discipline at the service of the public and one which provides solutions to the difficult challenges that lie ahead.
A third aim on which the new Board will focus is to work to improve the institution's relationship with the members and between members, encouraging the COAC's role as a meeting point for connection, participation and cooperation among architects.

L’Oficina Inici de la Professió sorgeix de la necessitat que tenen els arquitectes que s’incorporen en l’exercici de la professió de tenir al seu abast les eines, l'orientació i l'acompanyament durant l’inici de la seva carrera professional.
Posem al teu abast aquest espai digital organitzat en aquests quatre grans blocs, que recullen documentació (exclusiva per a col·legiats/des) i material formatiu per facilitar els primers anys exercint la professió, jornades pensades principalment per a joves i les qüestions més freqüents.
Amb una atenció personalitzada als joves i els que inicien la seva professió, oferint formació, informació, serveis i documentació que orienten en els primers passos a seguir i expliquen les temàtiques claus per començar el seu camí, el COAC vol acompanyar d'aquesta manera un dels col·lectius més importants dins de l'entitat.
SERVEIS DEL TEU INTERÈS

PARE, ARQUITECTE i MESTRE
entre generacions ben diferents
que dels avis i rebesavis en depèn,
un caliu, unes formes aprenents.
Eres el PARE d’una gran amiga,
tot just aterrar en aquelles aules
que semblaven d’una altra mida
i prens més consciència d’un país,
intuint un futur de reptes necessaris
quan t’inicies a la nostra professió
i descobreixes aquesta vessant social
que m’engresca aprenent paisatges i
fent treball de camp a les terres d’Alp.
Són moments plens de noves portes
quan surts d’un barri tan gracienc
et sorprèn i t’atrauen les novetats,
com la vostra família del barri veí.
M’encantava aquell petit ascensor
pujant al tercer pis per estudiar,
aquella còmode i lluent habitació
de dues finestres i un petit bany.
Espais pensats i dibuixats on fluïa
aquell respir familiar tan generós
embolcallat pel teu fer, al ressò
de l’avi Lluís i la mare Mariona.
Sintonia que es repetia a Es Pedrís
amb l’excusa de feines i treballs
vacances agraïdes de tot i més
entre la bellesa d’un paisatge únic
amagat entre el Teix i es Canyaret
des de la porxada a l’hora d’esmorzar
aquelles ensaïmades llamineres o
des de la terrassa a l’hora del cafè.
ARQUITECTE, referent i present,
una realitat plena de precedents,
arriba a aquesta coneguda dimensió
seguint culminant sense pretensions.
Només per aquest mateix tarannà,
sota la mateixa persona d’un PARE,
el mateix batec d’un cor incansable
com nu de complaences i aniversaris,
emergeix amb el treball del dia a dia,
pedra sobre pedra al ritme dibuixat,
mescla endreçada de tossudesa i saviesa
neix natura treballada amb tantes mans
com si es tractés d’un home universal,
feta per herència d’esforços i cabòries
encadenant mestres i deixebles,
o l’ entramat entre avi, pare i filla,
just tornant a l’ inici d’aquesta fita
que tant m’atrau escriure per agrair-te.
La complexitat d’un MESTRE que és pare
se’m fon quan observo aquesta evidència
la grandesa es barreja amb la senzillesa,
sobre aquesta sabuda imatge a vol d’ocell,
s’observa l’enginy i la bellesa d’una teulada,
la de les escoles treballades per la Mariona,
vora la immensitat de les torres emergents.
Aquest sentiment de vius contrastos
em trasllada a la sintonia d’uns reflexes
engendrats per records i vivències recents
la riquesa d’un PARE, ARQUITECTE I MESTRE,
sota els mateixos sòlids fonaments
que mai s’esvaeixen i sempre romanen:
la teva generositat i la força d’un treball
a l’ombra d’un tarannà familiar i estimat.
Amb tot l’afecte, avui per a tu, un dia de records,
al mig de l’agost, d’aquest any 2011.
Montserrat Hosta
Escrit publicat el 2011 al llibre "MISCEL·LÀNIA. Jordi Bonet i Armengol"