2017_05_22_ARQ_semanas_sostenibilidad_mdgae

The Master's Degree in design and management Environmental Buildings (MDGAE) of the University of Navarra celebrated last March the International Sustainability Weeks. School of Architecture of the University of Navarra held last March the International Sustainability Weeks. In addition to lectures, during these weeks, guest professors taught class to students enrolled in the MDGAE as well as to students of Master's Degree from the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff (UK), and the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany) with whom there is a partnership agreement.

"The new generations of architects must integrate the environment into their training , so that they always take it into account," said Thomas Auer, visiting professor of the Technischen Universität München, who gave a talk at lecture entitled Designing with climate: Adaptive Facades. He emphasized the transformation of facades according to climatic conditions and, focusing on Spanish architecture, Auer noted: "I have recently been to several Spanish cities and what I have seen is that the architectural quality in Spain is extraordinary. I think there is good technical understanding and also a great sense of aesthetics so if Spain is able to maintain that quality and combine it with all that knowledge on design manager , environmental, social and economic, and go to the next level, integrating it into the architecture, I really think it could be at the forefront of this Degree of innovation that we need".

Nirmal Kishn, from the National University of Singapore, spoke on The Power of Zero: Energy and Comfort and Tropical Asia and highlighted the contrasts between countries such as Japan, Korea or Singapore, where "sustainability is focused on solving problems such as population density, consumerism or garbage", with others in development such as China or Vietnam where new cities are born every year, "in Vietnam, for example, there are entire neighborhoods that have been completely transformed. These countries are at plenary session of the Executive Council development , they have not yet reached their full potential. The question in these areas is how to make better buildings, better neighborhoods, while in the developed area it is more a question about how to improve the existing ones." In all cases, architecture has to respond to the climate, not be an application of imported recipes.

Ulrich Knaack, professor at Delft University and TU Darmstadt, highlighted the synergies between engineering and architecture and the importance of working together at research. "The interaction between engineers and architects is amazing. They speak different languages, in fact they compete with their ways of working; but they would not survive without each other." In his talk Environmental design in sophisticated buildings: Transsolar experiences, Ulrich highlighted the importance of pre-simulation to predict the behavior of buildings but also of models. "Without computers the research would not be possible. Thanks to them we are able to predict what is going to happen and improve it, and after simulating it we need to see in mockups and prototypes if we have overlooked any influences. We need to check that what we have worked out is correct," he said.