CT LAB
Academic solutions for cities development
The CT Labs have the goal to share academic solutions with the society to face, together with the City Councils, the challenges of the growth of cities and the contemporary human habitat. Therefore, the cities become a laboratory where students work and develop their proposals. These works are then exhibited publicly.
Want to participate in our CT Lab? Send an e-mail to etsa@unav.es.
Upcoming CT Lab
SECOND project COIL
(COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING)
Campus interuniversity in El Paso, on the island of La Palma.
The 2025 to Isla de La Palma edition of Collaborative Online International Learning(COIL), focuses on the planning of an inter-university campus in El Paso, a municipality on the island of La Palma, affected by the volcanic eruption of 2021, which occurred between September 19 and December 13 of that year, and caused severe material damage and human losses. Since then, the City Council of El Paso and the Cabildo Insular de La Palma have begun a recovery process.
During the last three years, the School of Architecture of Navarra has carried out several exercises in the affected area, seeking to provide rehabilitation solutions and generate hope for the inhabitants of the island. Through the America Forum, a partnership between the Pan-American Federation of Architects Associations(FPAA) and the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, there is an opportunity to work together in this recovery process, involving universities from all over the world.
The project CT LAB 2025, to be carried out by 5th year students of Degree in Architecture at the University of Navarra, consists of the planning of an inter-university campus to host academic extension courses in the affected area. This campus will be open to universities from different parts of the world, offering a space for study and experience, and promoting international partnership in the recovery of the island of La Palma.
Previous CT Labs
During the 24-25 academic year, an exercise was carried out by 5th year Architecture students of the University of Navarra in the Villages model promoted by the Xunta de Galicia in order to revitalize the Galician countryside, in partnership with the RIA Foundation. On this occasion, and in order to obtain a broader vision and approach the topic in a more global way, the first project COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) was carried out, in partnership with the universities adhered to the America Forum, an initiative of the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra and the Pan-American Federation of Architects Associations(FPAA) to promote the research, the training of architecture professionals and the partnership between universities.
Each participating university carried out the exercise taking as a case study an area in the process of depopulation in their country, so that the analysis and proposals were evaluated from a global perspective. In this context, the CT LAB proposal , elaborated by the 5th year students of the University of Navarra, focused on the rehabilitation of the rural area of Monterrei, a area of great historical interest, presided by a castle, located in the province of Orense. Finally, the conclusions and final projects were shared in a virtual exhibition of the participating universities and the RIA Foundation.
In the framework of the partnership agreement between the RIA Foundation and the Concello de Carballeda de Avia for the development of the revitalization plan of the village model of Muimenta, the creation of collaborative links with academic institutions, researchers and entities of the economic, civic and social fabric is promoted. This initiative allowed the development of an academic program with the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, framed in the agreement CT Lab Carballeda de Avia, signed by the three entities.
Led by the visiting professor Fermín Vázquez(B720 Fermín Vázquez architects) and the teacher José Ángel Medina, the students of Degree in programs of study of Architecture of 5th course developed the project, during the first semester of this course, attending to the challenges and problems of the rural area . Specifically, they have worked on the implementation of a functional program in the village model of Muimenta to boost its economic and social reactivation.
Between January and April 2024, at framework of the CT Lab, the students and professors of Oriented Design Studio II (Project Workshop II) of the fifth year of Degree in Architecture of the School of the University of Navarra, will work in the municipality of El Paso (island of La Palma), based on the partnership agreement signed by the School of Architecture and the City Council of the island.
The topic to be developed will focus on the elderly, given the immediate challenges it poses for architecture. Thus, students will explore and develop new typologies that accommodate hybrid programs, architectural complexes that mix care or therapeutic spaces with tourist and residential spaces, short, average and long stay. As a result, they will be able to work not only in the field of geriatrics, but also in tourism and accommodation, two topics of special importance for La Palma and El Paso.
Finally, the design of industrialized, prefabricated and modularized solutions will be encouraged in the definition of each project, with the intention of definitively incorporating the imminent change in the ways of building into the professional internship .
The City Council of El Paso and the School of Architecture signed an agreement partnership agreement for 5th year students and professors of the Degree in programs of study of Architecture to work on projects to design a National Volcanological Center (CVN) -the City Council has applied as a municipality to host it- in the Cumbre Vieja area, where the Tajogaite volcano is located.
The students presented to the mayor of El Paso (La Palma), Sergio Rodríguez, 11 proposals for design of the future National Volcanological Center. These were exhibited in an itinerant sample during the academic year 2023-2024 in different localities of the island: El Paso, Santa Cruz de La Palma, Los Llanos and Tazacorte.
The nearby and historic city of Logroño has been laboratory of original ideas and proposals at different scales and fields. At the framework of the Logroño CT Lab, an initiative of the City Council of the capital of La Rioja with the aim of seeking academic solutions for the city, our students from Degree in Architecture and Master's Degree in design and management Environmental Building, shared the best results with society in order to move towards the specific challenges of the contemporary development .
In the framework of a agreement between the City Council of Logroño and the School, the architectural and urban projects for different areas of Logroño raised by our students in the subjects of Urbanism, Architecture, Landscape and Energy Regeneration, could be seen in September 2022 in a exhibition in the Cubo del Revellín in Logroño.
Bilbao CT Lab was born as an initiative of the School interested in Bilbao and its area of influence as an area of work for the practical activities that take place throughout the programs of study of Architecture. The uniqueness and complexity of the Biscayan capital and its region allow us to consider this conurbation as laboratory and case study at different scales and from different subjects (urban planning, architecture, landscape, design or history).
Consequently, an agreement has been reached with the Bilbao City Council to organize projects of mutual interest, with the aim of providing each course with real places and programs with which to develop proposals of interest to citizens.