The COAC presents the Architectural Agenda with Minister Mascarell
On 14 October, the Architects’ Association presented the Architectural Agenda, a new information channel for disseminating the cultural activities related to architecture, urban development and design taking place in Catalonia.
The ceremony was attended by the acting Minister for Culture, Ferran Mascarell, the Dean of the COAC, Lluís Comerón, and various cultural institutions that are already involved in the project.
The Architectural Agenda, an initiative of the Architects’ Association of Catalonia, was launched in July 2015. Since then, almost 30 cultural institutions across Catalonia have joined the project, working collaboratively as an Architectural Network.
After sending a trial run to the almost 10,000 members of the Association, the Architectural Agenda is now available to the general public, who can subscribe online at arquitectes.cat to get a weekly newsletter featuring the main cultural activities – conferences, exhibitions, guided tours, etc. – taking place within the next days.
The ultimate aim of the Agenda is to become a point of reference and an informative tool for architects, the general public, the media and foreign visitors.
Organizations already involved in the Architectural Agenda
Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, Arquinfad, Arquitectes per l’Arquitectura AxA, Arts Santa Mònica, BAC (Barcelona Architecture Center), CaixaForum, CCCB, Disseny Hub Barcelona, El Globus Vermell, ELISAVA, EME3, Escola ESARQ-UIC, Escola ETSAB-UPC, Escola ETSAL La Salle, Fundació Catalunya - La Pedrera, Fundació Enric Miralles, Fundació Mies Van der Rohe, Fundació Miró, Fundación Arquia, IAAC, MACBA, Open House, Plataforma Q9, Roca Barcelona Gallery, Institut d'Humanitats, El Born Centre Cultural, OAB Carlos Ferrater & Partners.
Long-term programme for recognition of a professional Master Degree
The Sert School offers an annual training plan focused on recognizing the skills of its students by means of specific training in order to obtain a professional Master Degree.
With this objective, specialized course content is formulated in those areas that are becoming consolidated as a driver of economic activity and which offer higher employment opportunities:
· Master in Building Renovation with a specialization in Structures
· Master in Sustainable Building Renovation
· Master in Sustainability with a specialization in Energy Management
· Master in Facility Management with a specialization in Energy Management
The professional master degrees from the Architects’ Association of Catalonia are training courses that recognize vocational skills in areas that are currently becoming established as drivers of economic activity, such as energy rehabilitation and environmental management.
The training courses at the Sert School are practical by nature, based on learning by doing and including real interventions in buildings and work placements in companies and institutions.
If you have already successfully completed the postgraduate courses of a particular specialization, you can request the recognition of a master degree by sending an email to infosert@coac.net.
Cooperative Architecture Seminar at the COAC
The COAC is organizing a seminar on the active role played by architects in Processes of Citizen Participation, which will be held on 26, 27 and 28 February at the COAC headquarters.
The Seminar on Cooperative Architecture, curated by Eva Serrats and Francesc Pla, are aimed at architects and other citizens who take part of specific participative processes or who, in their professional role within public administration, need to integrate participative processes into their work serving the community.
In view of the growing interest of many people to form part of the process of transforming the city, the aim of these public participation processes is to include the stakeholders involved (and/or affected) by this transformation in the process of urban and architectural design. Participative design consists of finding inclusive channels for integrating the different stakeholders, transforming the project into an open and collaborative creative process that devolves decision-making powers to local stakeholders.
Consequently, the objectives of the Seminar are as follows:
· To provide training for the architects’ collective in the tools and methodologies of citizen participation.
· To define the optimum conditions for developing processes of citizen participation.
· To promote the useful role of the architect in the projects and processes of citizen participation.
· To share knowledge and coordinate initiatives.
Go to the website of the Seminar
Go to the Facebook page of the Seminar
Building in Catalonia underpins the start of the recovery, though still very far from a normal situation
On Monday 25 January, at an open meeting with the media, the COAC analysed the construction and building renovation sector in Catalonia during 2015.
Last year closed with authorizations for 2,881,076 m2, 26% more than in 2014. While this is a very positive figure, we need to highlight certain considerations to make a proper evaluation of the state of the sector:
1. We did not witness sustained growth throughout 2015: There was a steep rise in the first half of the year which later dropped away.
2. The increase in authorized surface area was primarily due to the authorization of very big projects (over 10,000 m2), some of which were halted due to the crisis that resumed in 2015.
3. The authorized surface area is still at exceptionally low levels across the whole of Catalonia, and very much below the normal levels of construction and building renovation in the rest of Europe.
This situation is still unsustainable for the sector, which needs economic policies to promote and reactivate the industry and complete its modernization process.
ANALYSIS BY REGION
The province of Barcelona (not taking the city of Barcelona into account) has grown for the first time, with 38.45% more authorizations than in 2014. However, it is worth bearing in mind that 24.3% of this total is accounted for by major projects of more than 10,000 m2. The city of Barcelona, despite witnessing a significant upturn in 2014 (77.9%), grew in a much more restrained way in 2015 (14.7%). The other regions (Girona, Tarragona, Lleida and Ebre) maintained the general trend of a rise in their authorized surface area.
ANALYSIS BY TYPE OF BUILDING
In absolute terms, new build is continuing to experience the most significant growth (33%), with almost 1,800,000 m2 authorized. The authorized surface area for renovations has also grown, to around 1,000,000 m2, although compared to new build this growth is much more moderate (18%).
ANALYSIS BY USE
The current figures indicate a recovery in housing, which is growing more than the non-residential market, thus starting to return to normal. With regard to non-residential uses, there was a considerable increase in commercial property, which once again is represented by authorization of major projects. Other sectors are not recovering and in some cases are continuing on their own particular downturn: education, health and industry, for example. With regard to the number of authorizations for housing, 2015 closed with a total of 6,351, an increase of 47% compared to 2014.
CONCLUSIONS
The total volume of authorized surface area is still very much below the figure that would equate to the usual minimum.
The sector is not yet experiencing a sufficiently strong structural recovery. There is a great deal of diversity with regard to the type of projects, although the major projects have a bigger impact on overall growth. We can say, then, that the reactivation of the sector is still not having an impact on either the majority of architects or other professionals and firms working in the sector.
The increase in activity reflected in the amount of authorized surface area is primarily due to major projects in the province of Barcelona. Growth continues to be insignificant for the other provinces.
The strong growth in the city of Barcelona in 2014 (over 70%) was not maintained during 2015, even though growth did continue (around 15% compared to the previous year).
These figures underline something that the COAC has been demanding for some considerable time: the need to implement measures of structural change to drive and steer the sector’s recovery and, as a knock-on factor, the economy.
READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE
VIEW THE AUTHORIZATION GRAPHS