ARCHITECTURE, A SUBJECT ON THE SYLLABUS OF MAGNET SCHOOLS SUPORTED BY THE COAC
In March, the time of pre-enrolment for primary and secondary schools, the schools with which the COAC works to introduce architecture into the classroom made a point of highlighting this important and differentiating factor on their syllabuses.
For the past three years, the COAC has been collaborating with the Camps Elisis school in Lleida and the Marià Fortuny school in Reus through the Magnet programme, a joint venture of the Jaume Bofill Foundation, the Ministry of Education of the Government of Catalonia, Barcelona Provincial Council, the Barcelona Education Consortium, and the Institute of Education Sciences of the UAB.
The aim of the Magnet programme is to tackle the issue of school segregation through partnerships with leading institutions. The COAC implements this through its educational programme, ArquiEscola, a project that aims to bring architecture to the classroom by providing teaching staff with the tools to provide a more structured viewpoint of our environment, and aims to foster critical thinking about the construction and transformation of the spaces we inhabit, and to stimulate creativity.
Two pioneering schools
With the slogan of Construïm junts (Let’s build together),the architects who developed the COAC programme at the Camps Elisis school collaborated closely with its teaching staff. The students worked across the board, experimenting with different materials and techniques, and teamwork was a constant feature throughout the programme. Together, they developed new symbolic play areas, created reading corners, and gave serious thought to how to create more sustainable cities, among other topics.
The Marià Fortuny school chose the slogan of Transformem la llum (Let’s transform light). The COAC’s architects and the teaching staff used the tinkering method of learning to create a sundial, a time lapse device, and experiments with black-and-white photography, all based on light and shadow. In addition, architecture students from the ETSA-URV visited the school to join in the project to redesign the playground, a very large space that they want to put to new uses.
ON 8 MARCH WE SHOWCASED THE EXCELLENCE OF FEMALE ARCHITECTS
For some time now, one of the COAC’s priorities has been to promote and encourage women to join the profession and to make their work more widely visible. To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, the COAC organised an event to showcase the professional excellence of female architects. During the whole week, we featured on our social media the 36 women who have won a national or international prize in the last year, using the hashtag #socArquitectA, whether this was for a particular project or for their lifetime achievements.
Happy International Women’s Day, architects!
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THE REINA SOFIA MUSEUM AND THE COAC SIGN AN AGREEMENT TO PROMOTE KNOWLEDGE OF ARCHITECTURE
The COAC has signed an agreement with the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MNCARS) to establish joint actions to promote, plan and execute cultural projects that contribute to increasing knowledge of contemporary art in general and architecture and urbanism in particular. This agreement, which will turn the COAC’s Historical Archive into one of the documentary sources of the Reina Sofia Museum, is based on three lines of action: the loan and exhibition of works, the development of research programmes, and the joint production of publications.
These actions include sharing works from the MNCARS’ collections and the COAC’s Historical Archive, respectively, in the form of temporary loans for exhibitions: from works of art through to documents and audiovisual media.
The Coderch Archive, now available to COAC members
When it comes to research, the aim of both organisations is to develop programmes of mutual interest that open lines of research and knowledge in areas associated with architecture and contemporary urbanism. The agreement envisages the free and preferential access of COAC members to the José Antonio Coderch Archive, which has been held by the MNCARS Library and Documentation Centre since 2018.
Members will thus be able to refer to this collection, one of the most important in contemporary architecture, which contains around 10,000 documents classified between 1941 and 1978. Once the digitisation of the collection has been completed, the COAC’s Historical Archive will have its own copy, which will be available to members for reference purposes.
Similarly, the Reina Sofia Museum will guarantee members’ access to other professional archives and architectural material it may acquire in the future.
Publications, congresses and conferences
The agreement is rounded off with the two institutions’ commitment to jointly produce publications on the subjects of architecture and contemporary urbanism, as well as the organisation of congresses and conferences.
The Reina Sofia Museum, a cultural benchmark
The Reina Sofia Museum is one of the most important and visited cultural institutions in Spain: it holds a hugely important collection of twentieth-century art, notably works by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. It also has an art library containing more than 100,000 books, 3,500 sound recordings, and 1,000 videos.
A PROJECT PROMOTED BY THE COAC, WINNER AT THE AWARDS FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INTO URBAN CHALLENGES OF THE CITY OF BARCELONA
There is a direct relationship between housing conditions and the health of the people who live in them. This has been demonstrated in recent years and is now recognised by the World Health Organization (WHO). The COVID-19 crisis has shown even more clearly, if that were possible, the importance of healthy living conditions both in the home and in our immediate environment. In addition, the increasing trend towards teleworking and remote learning, along with factors such as population ageing, point to us spending more time than ever at home in the medium and long term.
The HABITAS project (Housing and Health during the Pandemic and Beyond), supported by the COAC, among other institutions, was a winner at the Awards for Scientific Research into Urban Challenges of the City of Barcelona. The research study, which examines the complex relationship between housing and health, was headed by architect Carlota Sáenz de Tejada with the support of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the UPC, the CSIC, the Barcelona Metropolitan Housing Observatory, the Societat Orgànica cooperative and FabLab Barcelona, as well as the COAC Working Group on Architecture and Health.
The project aims to help find solutions to some of the main housing challenges facing the city of Barcelona and its metropolitan area, and hopes to come up with the answers to questions such as these: To what extent does the type of building, its occupancy level, and the ventilation habits of its households contribute to interior air quality? Is there a connection between these factors and the rate of COVID-19 infection in the city?
Awards for Scientific Research into Urban Challenges
The Awards, organized by Barcelona City Council as part of the Barcelona Science Plan 2020-2023, are aimed at members of the scientific community under the age of 40, from any branch of knowledge. The aim is to stimulate and strengthen young talent in Barcelona and support innovative projects that think ‘outside the box’ of the city’s general model.
These first Awards, which have a total endowment of 1.2 million euros, attracted 72 entrants, 22 of which were awarded a prize. The selected projects targeted issues such as population density, public space, social welfare, sustainable mobility, the climate crisis, population ageing, and new productive models, among other topics.