The University and the Cabildo de La Palma sign an agreement agreement to develop teaching and research activities. research

Last Monday, May 6, the president of the Cabildo Insular de La Palma, Sergio Rodríguez Fernández, and the mayor of the municipality of El Paso, Eloy Martín Barreto, visited the campus of Pamplona of the University of Navarra to sign a partnership agreement with the academic center. The purpose is to develop different teaching, research and knowledge dissemination activities.

The agreement framework where all the activities will take place is called"Isla Lab Cabildo de La Palma-University of Navarra". "This name responds to the strategy we have in the School of Architecture that our building is a laboratory, as well as our campus and those cities and municipalities in which we carry out projects with our students," explains Eduardo Domingo, director of development of the School of Architecture of the University.

The partnership between La Palma and the University was born precisely with a project that promoted the School of Architecture after the eruption of the Tajogaite volcano. "Thanks to the initiative of the architect and professor of Master's Degree in design and management Environmental Buildings, César Ruiz-Larrea, the students of Master's Degree developed emergency housing projects and sustainable character for those affected by the eruption," explains Eduardo Domingo.

Afterwards, the students of Degree at programs of study in Architecture worked on new proposals for the island: for the National Volcanological Center (2023) and for a multifunctional center for the elderly in El Paso (2024), which in a few days will be presented at School of Architecture. With all these exercises, developed under the CT Lab framework (the space becomes a laboratory), traveling exhibitions have been designed to tour the island. In the case of the proposals for the National Volcanological Center, the sample has already visited the municipalities of El Paso, Santa Cruz de La Palma, Los Llanos and Tazacorte.

Moment of the signature of the partnership agreement between the University of Navarra and the Cabildo Insular de La Palma. Photo: Manuel Castells.

For this summer, a course has also been organized: 'Metal craftsmanship'. This will be held in Santa Cruz de La Palma from June 24 to 28 and will be taught by local craftsman and expert in blacksmithing and forging Yoel Díaz Sánchez. 

In addition to architecture and art, design is also involved in teaching activities. On the same day of the signature of agreement, the student of Degree in design Sabina Suárez González presented her work Final Project Degree to the Cabildo, which consists of the creation, from volcanic ash of La Palma, of a material that could serve as an acoustic insulator.

Teaching activities have also been carried out with the University's Science School . In April, a group of students from Degree in Environmental Sciences made an educational trip to the Canary Islands, where they visited, in addition to the island of La Palma, the Garajonay National Park, Mount Teide and other emblematic places of the islands.

For more information on the activities that have been developed and that will be carried out in the framework of this partnership agreement, you can visit this web page.