1. CONTEXT The project IACOBUS + Culture, Heritage and Integration is an academic experience in an international university environment for students of architecture in the last period of their studies. It is built on a previous experience, the IACOBUS program, a collaboration agreement that implied around 1,000 students, teachers and experts from the University of A Coruña, the ENSA of Clermont-Ferrand and the OTH of Regensburg since 1995. The proposal is to work around a series of projects of awareness and intervention on heritage sites and its environments in risk or threat of disappearance by the lack of legal mechanisms of protection, the abandonment, the ruin or the urban pressure. It is about giving new uses to buildings and revitalizing their environments, as part of a collective exercise of architecture and research, with a high impact on the communities where it operates. During these years, those responsible established a rotating methodology, so that each semester the students worked in a different environment and in a different country. The program has been widely accepted, both among the students and by the recipient communities of the different projects. 2. EXPECTED IMPACT The opportunity to incorporate a new institution to the project, the NUACA of Yerevan (Armenia), and the correspondence between the study plans – once adapted to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) - of the OTH, ENSACF and ETSAC, speak in favor to update the project under a more ambitious schemes. In this way, by the year 2020, the following actions shall be pursued: 1º The incorporation of new associated institutions with coincident objectives. 2º The positioning of the project as a disciplinary axis, around the architectural rehabilitation, in the Master in Architecture in the study plans of the OTH, ENSACF and ETSAC. 3º The establishment of double degrees with a Master level among the participating institutions. 4. Involve all the actors in the project in a global problem such as the situation of refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers, through the commitment of the students in the projects within the host communities. 3. OBJECTIVES The project has a triple purpose: 1 – To provide specialized training for students in a context of collective work, joining international groups, under real premises and hypotheses, so that their work, far beyond the academic, will have a significant social impact. For students, this is an opportunity for training in the field of heritage intervention, but also an experience of exchange of knowledge and methodologies in work and training. 2 - To invite citizens and authorities to reflect on the cultural value and the possibilities of providing new uses to old industrial, educational, religious, civil, etc. facilities, understanding the recovery of these buildings as a cultural value, with commitment to sustainability and social responsibility towards less favored communities. 3 - Contribute to the construction of the European citizenship by raising awareness towards our common history and cultural heritage. 4. ACTIVITIES, METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS: Each year, during the second academic semester, each School will propose an exercise of intervention in Heritage, fulfilling the requirements for its development, as far as possible, as Master thesis. In parallel, the NUACA will organize a new exercise in Yerevan, under a social context, with the participation of students from the other three Architecture Schools. The results will be presented at the end of the semester before courts composed of teachers and experts from the participating institutions and collaborators. With these materials, it will be developed a research and analysis work, published into a book and as part of a traveling exhibition that will be presented in the context of an international seminar. This methodology is meant to be applied throughout the 3 years / academic courses of the project, ensuring the continuity of the project, once entered into the respective Study Plans, and with the approval of agreements leading to double international degrees. Two additional publications will be elaborated, collecting the overall experiences of the project and the activities carried out in Armenia. 5. NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS The project will involve around 330 students, 24 teachers and a number yet to be determined of experts and collaborators from partner institutions.
1. CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND The IACOBUS + Culture, Heritage and Integration project has been a teaching experience, in an international university environment, for students of the Bachelor and Master levels in architecture. It is built on the previous experience of IACOBUS, a collaboration agreement that, since 1995, has brought together almost 1,000 students, professors and experts from the ETSA of the University of A Coruña, the ENSA of Clermont-Ferrand and the OTH of Regensburg. It consisted on an invitation to work on a series of awareness-raising and intervention projects on buildings and environments of patrimonial interest, at risk or threat of disappearance due to the lack of legal protection mechanisms, abandonment, ruin or urban pressure. The aim was to provide the buildings with new uses and revitalize their surroundings, as part of a collective exercise of architecture and research, with a high impact on the communities in which it operates. A rotating methodology was defined, in such a way that each year the work was focused on a study case located in the hometown of each of the participant institutions. 2. OBJECTIVES The IACOBUS + Culture, Heritage and Integration project has been carried out over the last three academic years 2018-2020, with a triple objective: 1 – To provide specialized training for students in a context of collective work forming international groups, under real premises and hypotheses, in such a way that their work, beyond the academic, has an important social impact. For them, it is a training opportunity in the field of intervention in heritage, but also an experience of exchanging knowledge and work and training methodologies. 2 – To invite citizens and authorities to reflect on the possibilities of providing new uses to old industrial, educational, religious, civil facilities, etc., understanding the recovery of these buildings as a cultural value, as well as a commitment to sustainability and with social responsibility towards the less favored communities. 3- To contribute to the construction of European citizenship through awareness of history and common cultural heritage. To create personal and professional links between participating students through collaborative work and the exchange of experiences, experiences and reflections. 3. PARTICIPANTS 226 students, 24 professors and more than 20 external experts and collaborators from the partner institutions have participated in the project. 4. ACTIVITIES 3 case studies were proposed, one for each year of the project, in addition to 2 workshops in Armenia in 2018 and 2019. The case studies generated a lot of documents as a result of both research and analysis, and the proposals made by student groups, continuously directed and supervised by teachers in a collaborative context. The most intense phases of the project were coincident with the moments of meeting of the students, around the workshops and seminars organized in Regensburg (March 2018), A Coruña (March 2019) and, online in March 2020, in line with the respective proposals, in the presentations of the works, carried out in A Coruña (June 2018), Clermont-Ferrand (May 2019), and online throughout the months of May and June 2020, and in the workshops held in Yerevan (Armenia), in April 2018 and April 2019. The activities planned for 2020 had to be carried out on an online basis due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic situation. 5. RESULTS AND IMPACT The tangible results and objectives of the project are reflected in the documents, works, studies, reviews and proposals made during the term of the project. Apart from these, three levels of impact can be considered, achieved throughout the project period (2017-2020): 1- Impact on the participants. At an academic level, specialized training has been obtained for students in the disciplinary axis of intervention in architectural heritage, developing skills to work in an international environment and improving their language skills. 2- Impact on host communities. The participation of non-formal partners in the proposal and definition of the different case studies has stimulated the appearance of useful and viable proposals, made from the pause, reflection and collaborative work. 3- Impact on partner institutions. A collaboration between the partners has been consolidated with guarantees of continuity. In the longer term, it is planned to implement the program by opening it up to new interested institutions, for which contacts have been maintained with schools of architecture in Liege, Milan, Venice, Ljubljana, Barcelona, Porto, Bucharest, Sarajevo and Las Palmas.