A school of Architecture is invited each year to participate at the FAV. For this edition, the FAV decided to invite the Higher Technical School of Architecture of San Sebastián in Spain.

The Higher Technical School of Architecture of the Universuty of the Basque Country in San Sebastian

The Higher Technical School of Architecture of San Sebastián was founded in 1977, as a branch of the E.T.S.A. of Barcelona, at the initiative of the architect Luis Peña Ganchegui. In 1982 it joined the University of the Basque Country, laying in his current location since 1992.

Being the only School of Architecture in the Basque Country, its subjects are taught in its two official languages, Basque and Spanish, in addition to offering a good number of them also in English. Its commitment to internationalization, with double degree agreements with the schools of Bordeaux and Montpellier, and mobility agreements signed with more than 100 universities spread over more than 30 countries, is reflected in the presence of about 100 students from exchange programs.

Both degrees taught in the school, the Degree in Fundamentals of Architecture and the Master in Architecture, reach together approximately 800 enrolled students, who are attended by a total of 95 teachers.

The Team

The “Fall into the Sky” proposal, designed for the courtyard of the Hôtel des Tresoriers de la Bourse on the occasion of the “Festival des Architectures Vives” de Montpellier, has been carried out by students of the 5th year of the School of Architecture of San Sebastian, as part of the subjects of Landscape Architecture and Architectural Design Experimental Lab, taught by professors Mario Sangalli and Iñigo de Viar, respectively.

Grouped in teams of 4 people, the students developed a total of 15 solutions, with which an exhibition was set up at the school. A guest jur selected 4 finalist proposals, among which the winning intervention was chosen by the students. From that moment, all the students have worked in the development of the project, being organized in work-teams to approach the different aspects to be developed, providing solutions in a community work.

The Project – Falling into the Sky

Playing with the perception of the visitor, the project transforms the boundaries so that entering the courtyard suggests entering another dimension.

The concept is emphasized by the idea of threshold and trespassing a limit. This is materialized by the most obvious symbol, the door, so that visitors become aware of entering a private and intimate space,  the intrinsic characteristics of a courtyard.

When looking into the mirror, the visitor sees a distorted perspective of the courtyard that makes him even more observant, forcing him to discover the space in another way, looking at the facades, making him concious about the surrounding.

Emotion is associated, in this proposal, with the effect of vertigo that brings the sensation of risk of falling into the sky. In addition the effect of the mirror accentuates the narrow proportions of the courtyard and the feeling of being in an empty space.

Concentrico Partnership

The FAV is glad to do a partnership this year again with Concéntrico Festival in Logroño !

Concéntrico festival has been created by Javier Peña Ibañez who had participated at the FAV in 2012.

Thus, taking as a starting point the FAV, he created in 2015 the first edition of the festival Concéntrico in Logroño in the area of Rioja in Spain.
Within this framework, a team of architects selected by Concéntrico will make an installation during the FAV and a team of architects having taken part in the FAV will make an installation Logroño. 

This exchange is carried out in collaboration with 

FRESArchitecture associatio Franco-Spanish  of architecture.

The team of the FAV in Logroño is composed of Samuel Berthomeau, Lucie Monthes and Michael Martins Afonso.

The Team

Susana Gutiérrez, Tamara Benés and Sonia Moral met each other at Concéntrico in 2016, and they are in charge of representing the Logroño festival in this edition of FAV. Coming from different Spanish Architecture schools they have now shared their background to create an atypical scenario in the middle of the city, where architecture blends with nature and the city boundaries get blurred. Their work tries to connect not just with the festival structure but with the audience that visits it, interacting through their emotions. This approach to the people comes from a strong and single idea, but it can be read in different ways as people experience and understand it while they go through the installation. This goal is based in the idea that both art and architecture don’t have to be exclusive but open for the contemporary society.

The Project – Laberinto

Montpellier is full of small courtyards that provide us the opportunity to create out of context spaces, immersed in the heart of the city. This way we want to make the observer imagine a different world with our proposal.
The courtyard has limited dimensions and a clear subject, a stone water well, located in a corner. Memory of past times when it fullfilled its function in an important way, we want to get back that significance by making it the heart around which the installation is disposed. This is about a wooden maze, built with curved walls that revolve around the well in concentric circles and invade the entire courtyard. Multiple routes are created until reaching the core where the well is located, from which the vegetation seems to arise and dominate the site as it advances. The walls are formed with wooden slats that are arranged transversely, so that vision is enabled but they can not be crossed.