Sara Dorregaray (B.Arch ’19 and M.Arch ’20) has been seeking answers to the “why” questions ever since she was a child. During her degree program, she had the opportunity to join theSAVIArquitectura research project , and eventually “the seed planted by that opportunity grew, and I felt the need to pursue thesis —a process of building knowledge has result “truly exciting,” she explains.
In this interview, Sara discusses her introduction to research the focus of her thesis “Technical and Economic Methodology for the Energy Disconnection of the School of Architecture the University of Navarra,” supervised by César Martín-Gómez, Full Professor the School of Architecture Mónica Aguado, an engineer and professor at the Public University of Navarra.
1. How would you describe the research process research the thesis
With regard to the process, the research with a very specific question: Is it possible for an active university building—decades old and of recognized heritage value—to become independent of the network ?
To address this, we had to develop our own methodology, because there was no protocol that simultaneously addressed the technical, economic, and heritage dimensions of this challenge. It was a challenge—a long, extensive process of background research to find a middle ground against which to measure and evaluate the balance of these three aspects.
2. How did the idea come about?
The proposal from the Saltoki Chair , a partnership the business and the University of Navarra that funds research and defines its thematic areas. At a meeting in June 2021, the Chair committee Chair the School of Architecture energy disconnection School of Architecture a real need and a challenge with internship implications. That proposal to Office of the Executive Council received institutional support, as well as funding that made its implementation feasible.
3. Why the School of Architecture the University of Navarra?
The school was not chosen at random. It offers unique characteristics: it is a building in continuous use, constructed in 1978, with a floor area of 9,486 m², and listed by the Do.Co.Mo.Mo_Ibérica Foundation for its architectural value. These characteristics make it a particularly challenging case study, but also an extremely representative one.
In addition, the University designated it as a pilot building under its 2025 Strategy: if the methodology works here, it can be replicated in the other sixteen buildings on Campus that share similar architectural characteristics. The School was, at the same time, the most strategic starting point.
4. Given that this is a building of "archaeological and Modernist heritage," what have been the biggest challenges?
grade: This classification is provided by the Do.Co.Mo.Mo_Ibérica Foundation, an organization dedicated to the architectural heritage of the Modern Movement; it is not "archaeological" in the strict sense.
The main challenge is that the designation as a historic landmark imposes a responsibility to respect the elements that led to that recognition: the expressiveness of the exposed brick, the continuous glazed windows along the facade, and the spatial grid of the roof with its skylights. Any technical intervention must be carried out without compromising that identity.
Added to this is the building’s inherent thermal complexity: since it has the same building envelope on all four sides, very different thermal behaviors arise depending on the use and exhibition each area. Identifying these differences through monitoring and analysis formed the basis for the entire intervention strategy.
The result that heritage challenges are not obstacles, but rather factors that necessitate the design of more appropriate solutions
5. Could energy disconnection be the future of Building ?
The research that this is technically feasible. Six different scenarios have been developed—ranging from the comprehensive implementation of passive strategies to an optimized combination of active and passive measures—and in all of them, the building’s energy self-sufficiency is quantifiable and viable.
That said, energy independence should not be viewed as an end in itself, but rather as a strategic goal. What this research is a replicable methodology— tool—that allows any institution to assess which combination of measures—based on its technical, economic, and asset-related constraints—will best bring it closer to that autonomy.
The future of Building does not lie in a single solution, but rather in having methodological tools that enable informed decisions to be made in each specific case. This thesis be one of those tools.
