Visit to the CENER and Aquavox buildings in Pamplona
In November, we went to Pamplona to visit two examples of bioclimatic buildings: the Centro Nacional de Energías Renovables (CENER – the National Centre for Renewable Energy) at Sarriguren and the Aquavox San Jorge sports complex.
The CENER is a technological centre that specialises in applied research and the development and promotion of renewable energy sources.
On the visit to the CENER, which is a project developed by the architects Ruiz-Larrea, Luis Miquel and Antonio Gutiérrez, we were accompanied by Florencio Manteca, head of the department of Bioclimatic Architecture at the CENER. He explained and showed us the bioclimatic strategies used by the building in winter and summer.
In the afternoon, we visited the Aquavox San Jorge municipal sports complex, accompanied by Carmelo Fernandez Militino (TYM Asociados), the architect responsible for the study and author of the project, and José Ignacio Alfonso, the head of projects of Pamplona City Council. This building won the Sustainable City prize for its design and is a good example of energy efficiency; it is a zero greenhouse gas thermal installation, thanks to its use of numerous types of renewable energy.
Conference by Harald N. Rostvik
On 18th November, the ETSAB received a visit from the Norwegian architect Harald N. Rostvik, lecturer at the School of Architecture of Bergen (Norway).
The conference was organised in collaboration with the Master’s Degree in Architecture and Sustainability and the IREC, within the framework of the European project AIDA.
Rostvik is a pioneer and visionary in the field of sustainable design. He has been working in this area since 1977 and has projected buildings, communities and systems of transport in various European countries and also in Mali (Western Africa) and Sri Lanka (Asia).
He was also a pioneer in the well-known proposal for the International Solar Energy Society (ISES). As president of the Norwegian section, he formed an alliance with Eurosolar at the United Nations Conference of 1992, held in Rio, in order to get the subject of Energy treated as a separate theme in the Rio Conference negotiations. At that time, energy did not even appear as a separate issue in the order of the day and the majority of people and institutions openly ridiculed the potential of solar energy.
Under the title of “the buildings and communities of the future: low energy consumption, zero or more, – what should we aim for?”, he showed us examples of his projects and presented his reflections, questions and possible answers relating to the work of architects faced by the challenge of climatic change.
