Presentations

INÉS SÁNCHEZ DE MADARIAGA, Architect
The challenge of inclusion in European cities of the 21st century
“Nobody Left Behind” is the slogan of the New Urban Agenda. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development likewise advocates a similar idea regarding a series of thematic goals that are embodied in territorial and urban development, specifically set out in SDG 11. In this first quarter of the 21st century, following a pandemic and in the midst of a war in Europe, how should we approach the urban development implications of what the organisers of this event have dubbed the “inclusion challenge”. During the second half of the 20th century, European cities achieved what is still pending in much of the world: cities with good public transport systems, a full range of amenities, free spaces, and a more or less reasonable, although usually expensive, supply of housing. Our cities offer levels of material well-being that are the envy of the rest of the world, but even so, the inclusion challenge still needs to be discussed. During the lecture, l will consider how addressing the inclusion challenge in our cities implies broadening one’s perspective to consider the specifical life realities of different groups of people to achieve urban planning most focused on providing answers for people’s everyday life.
1. Recovery funds
Recovery funds have to go when they are most needed: The vulnerable neighbourhoods
20´ with AGUSTÍN HERNÁNDEZ AJA, architect
The recovery funds must be used to reverse urban equality and rebalance the city. Spanish cities have nearly a thousand vulnerable neighbourhoods, which accumulate a lack of amenities, poor quality housing (with its correlative energy poverty) and lack of home-grown opportunities. They are a window of opportunity to invest funds that seek to make Europe fairer and more sustainable.
ORAIN Otxar, an urban regeneration experience in Bilbao
20´ with TXARI VALLEJO, architect
Opengela is a project which looks to spread urban regeneration in the Basque Country using a novel new instrument: the creation of neighbourhood offices which will act as one-stop-shops to provide advice and support to the neighbourhood community. The office in each neighbourhood (Opengela) centralises all the procedures and administration related to the process of integrated renovation of the apartment buildings: from administrative paperwork to dealing with energy services contractors or the provision of financial aid. This project, financed by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission, has started with a pilot test in two neighbourhoods: Otxarkoaga (Bilbao) and Txonta (Eibar).
2. New spaces of use and fairness
Vulnerable neighbourhoods at the centre of the cohesion policy?
20´ with SONIA DE GREGORIO, architect
Vulnerable neighbourhoods are a European-wide problems that have been under the spotlight in the EU’s Cohesion Policy since the 1980s. The first programmes for the urban renewal of those locations date back to that time. The presentation will provide an overview of how this matter has been addressed by the Cohesion Policy in recent decades, with the focus on lessons learnt and the present moment.
The public space as a space of inequality
20´ with JOSÉ MANSILLA LÓPEZ, antropologist
Even though the dominant narrative tends to present what is now known as the public space as an inherently positive sphere and, in fact, the outcome of progressive policies, it can but show the reality of social relations in those cities in which it is developed where it rewards inequality, exclusion and social conflict.
Effective instruments against territorial inequality
20´ with IGNACIO DE LA PUERTA RUEDA, Director of Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda
An experience based on management in Territorial Planning, Urban Development and Urban Regeneration in the Basque Government.
Panel
Discussion + stimulus video by Pezestudio + discussion + questions
Idoia Legarreta Solaguren. Moderator Gorka Cubes San Salvador del Valle.
3. Sustainable management of the rural environment
Coexisting in rural spaces by fostering cooperation and sustainability
20´with RUBÉN MENDEZ CEBRIÁN, graduated in Advertising and Public Relations
The rural ecosystem has always been based on cooperation driven by need. The farmstead has been set up as a system of maximum efficiency at every level. In recent decades, the technological boom and the cultural change driving consumption and the individualisation of life have fostered an isolation that generates greater vulnerability, neglect, scarcity, inefficiency and growing tensions. The cooperative mindset aims to recover the spirt, work and experience of the rural community adapted to our time, which is applied with solutions in different areas and activities. Our species is essentially social and needs to live in mutually-supportive groups to develop its learning and potential to contribute. The aim is to achieve greater balance and sustainability with the environment, and provide healthier and more fulfilling relations for all people and entities.
City and countryside: spatial inequalities and destructed territories turning their backs on each other. Reconnection opportunities thanks to the green infrastructure.
20´ with ITXARO LATASA ZABALLOS, graduated in Geography
The city and the country – traditionally complementary – have now turned away from each other in an unsustainable process of territorial confrontation, fragmentation and inequality. Architecture and the territorial fields of knowledge are therefore facing the challenge of providing solutions that allow those fragmented territories to be reconnected (“stitched”) and reconciled; the green infrastructure can be a tool and great ally in that task.
4. Rural world/urban world balance
Driving the spread of NG broadband in isolated areas
20´ con GORKA ESTEBEZ MENDIZABAL, graduated in Economics and Business Studies
The aim is to narrow the digital gap in population units. That is particularly relevant in rural areas, which operators often ignore and that lead to a greater imbalance in the connectivity between the inhabitants of less populated municipalities (or isolated areas) compared to towns with larger populations.
The challenge of the rural in energy management: macroprojects vs communities
10´with Comunidad Rural Guzmán – RAÚL PARÁMO FLORES, sociologist
The inequality of existing in infrastructures and services between the rural territory and the urban is an indisputable reality. As regards energy, the challenge of the transition to renewable sources has generated a new type of inequality: large-scale developments (wind and solar power) in the countryside impose a new reality that change the landscape, the relations with the land, the economy and the environment. This paper will provide a Rural Energy Community case study set up in a village of less than 100 inhabitants in those areas of Spain affected by the population drain. The role of the energy communities as a factor of change with huge potential in the transition to renewable energies will be discussed.
Harnessing the sun in solidarity
10´with Comunidad Urbana Valencia – VICENT RIPOLL CATALÁ, diploma in teaching
We aim to be an energy self-sufficient and sustainable school. Working together to eradicate energy poverty by setting up an energy community of solidarity. The photovoltaic facility will generate power for the school, as an example of energy efficiency, and the surplus will help to lower the electricity bill of 27 families by 50% as a lesson in solidarity.
Regeneration proposals for las encartaciones supramunicipal region as part of the spanish urban agenda
20´ with Mª ELENA LACILLA LARRODÉ, architect
Las Encartaciones Supramunicipal Region was studied in the Urban Regeneration subject taught in the fifth year of the Degree in Architecture Studies – as part of the Urban Project Management Certification – at the School of Architecture at the University of Navarra. As part of the Spanish Urban Agenda, the study place has been analysed and assessed based on the descriptive data of each of the municipalities making up the supramunicipal district, along with the integral urban regeneration proposals for Las Encartaciones. Those proposals were developed taking into account the ten strategic goals set out in the Spanish Urban Agenda. The paper comprises a presentation of the whole analysis and assessment procedure. It also goes over the regeneration actions that have taken place during the running of the subject and the workshop during the BIA Congress.
Panel
Discussion + stimulus video by TallerD2 + discussion + questions
Koldo Martín Escudero. Moderator Patxi Chocarro.
BIA 2022 award
Tribute to Lluís Comeron

