IN-PERSON Barcelona Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

First-year students begin their studies with a preconceived idea of what Architecture is, often associating it with formal and instrumental aspects while overlooking the fact that transversal action and critical analysis of the inhabited environment in our cities are fundamental to any project. In this context, in 2016, the La Salle-URL School of Architecture introduced a new transversal subject in the first year to foster collaborative teaching dynamics and promote the recognition of a pluralistic architecture composed of multiple interrelated facets. This initiative is known as Aula Barcelona [Barcelona Classroom]. Currently, this activity takes the form of a workshop, conducted and evaluated jointly across all subjects in the first three years of the Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture Studies. It involves over 350 students and 80 professors. Its objectives are: discovering the city of Barcelona, understood as an extension of the classroom and campus into the urban environment, and developing transversal skills through teamwork and urban exploration. This paper presents the most recent triennium of Aula Barcelona, carried out during the 2022–2024 academic years, which explored three different approaches to the city: the matrix, the itineraries, and the limits. The common thread among these approaches was the discovery of the city through transurbancy, the mediation of analysis using catalysts in various formats (literature, concepts, images, sounds, etc.), and the collaborative construction of a model of the discovered Barcelona, synthesizing the urban experiences shared by each working group.