AHI Architectural Heritage Intervention

“Contributing to enhancing our heritage, as the way forward for 21 st Century architecture is our raison d’être; to emphasize a diverse, rich vision that necessarily complements the intervention is our mission, and achieving it with reflexive and purposeful efforts is the challenge”.

This project, founded in, and directed since, 2011 by Ramon Calonge, Oriol Cusidó, Marc Manzano and Jordi Portal, architects and members of the Group of Architects for the Defence and Intervention in Architectural Heritage (AADIPA), has, through the years become a platform that includes four actions that are both independent and transversal.
 
The European Award, a biennial event that brings together and showcases the multiple approaches of intervention in Europe.

The International Biennial, a framework that serves to compare and gain closer insight of quality interventions in architectural heritage in non-European countries.

The digital Archive, a live and open window that provides a panoramic view of interventions in the history of our surroundings.

The Forum, a meeting place where you can participate in on-going debates about the main preoccupations and lines of thought about interventions in architectural heritage in Europe.

Social aspects, quality and precision, present in the winning entries of the European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA

Social aspects, quality and precision, present in the winning entries of the European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA

15 June 2017

  • The conversion of a convent into a holiday apartment complex, the restoration of a group of plots as urban market gardens and an urban development plan responding to the demands of local residents are among the winners of the 3rd European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA. The jury, which praised the overall quality and rigour of the almost 200 entries, short-listed 18 projects from which it selected four winners and two special mentions.
     
  • The European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA is a biennial award organised by the COAC (Association of Architects of Catalonia) and the AADIPA (Association of Architects for the Defence and Intervention in Architectural Heritage), with the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Catalonia. This third award has maintained a high level of international participation, with Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Belgium being the best-represented countries.

The winners of the 3rd European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA were announced by the jury today at the COAC headquarters in Barcelona. The announcement of the 18 short-listed projects, from which two special mentions and four winners were chosen, was made during the 3rd International Architectural Heritage Intervention Biennial AADIPA. The awards were presented by Mr Jusèp Boya, Director General of Archives, Libraries, Museums and Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Catalonia; Mr Daniel Mòdol, Councillor for Architecture, Urban Landscape and Heritage of Barcelona City Council; Mr Albert Civit, Director of INCASOL (Catalan Land Institute); and Mr Lluís Comerón, Dean of the Association of Architects of Catalonia.
Praising the high overall quality of the submitted entries and highlighting the precision and accuracy with which the interventions approached heritage restoration, the international jury of the award decided on the following winners and runners-up in each of the four award categories:

In Category A) Intervention in Built Heritage, the jury increased the number of runners-up to six due to the high level of participation and quality, diversity of scales, complexity, ambition and sensitivity of the entries. The six short-listed projects were:

  • Conversion of the Bernardas Convent, by Eduardo Souto de Moura (Tavira, Portugal)
  • Culinary school in the old Sol89 abattoir (Cadiz, Spain)
  • Restoration of the Palace and Gardens of San Telmo as the Presidential Headquarters of the Regional Government of Andalusia, by Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra (Seville, Spain)
  • Restoration of the 18th-century Es Pi des Català Tower, by Marià Castellò, Architect (Formentera, Spain)
  • Refurbishment of the Church of Santa María de Vilanova de la Barca, by AleaOlea Architecture and Landscape (Lleida, Spain)
  • Conversion of three pumping stations of the Skjern River, by Johansen Skovsted Arkitekter (Skjern, Denmark)

From the short-listed entries, the jury decided to grant the award to the conversion project of the Bernardas Convent in Tavira by the Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura. The decision was taken after taking into consideration the special difficulty involved in achieving high architectural quality in a private development, creating a holiday apartment complex without undermining the architectural and heritage qualities of the original convent. Furthermore, the jury decided to award a special mention to the restoration of the Es Pi des Català Tower in Formentera, by Marià Castellò, due to the precision, simplicity and efficacy of the intervention. The jury has recognised smaller-scale heritage interventions with the goal of striking a balance in the award.

In Category B) Outdoor Spaces, four works were short-listed:

  • Caramoniña Allotments, by Abalo Alonso Architects (A Coruña, Spain)
  • Restoration of the irrigation system of the thermal market gardens of Caldes de Montbui, by Cíclica + Cavaa (Caldes de Montbui, Spain)
  • Pedra da Rá Lookout Point, by Carlos Seoane (A Coruña, Spain)
  • Restoration of the Caminito del Rey Walkway, by Luis Machuca Santa-Cruz (Malaga, Spain)

The jury decided to grant the award in Category B to the Caramoniña allotments project, by Abalo Alonso Architects. This intervention preserves and showcases an element of social heritage: the productive landscape. The project involves the masterful handling of just a handful of elements through the adoption of a subtle and interwoven approach, magnificently outlining a place and facilitating new routes that keep it active and provide it with an identity that is both new and ancient.

In Category C) Urban Planning, the four short-listed entries were:

  • Special plan for the heritage protection of the ancient village of Sant Andreu del Palomar, by Joan Casadevall Serra (Barcelona, Spain)
  • Cultural Termites, by Aleksandra Ajzenhamer and Vito Boševski (Zagreb, Croatia)
  • Master Plan of the Hospital Real, by Javier Gallego Roca Architect (Granada, Spain)
  • Programmatic and urban study for the Citröen building, by MS-A and Wessel de Jonge (Brussels, Belgium)

The winning entry in Category C was the Special plan for the heritage protection of the ancient village of Sant Andreu del Palomar, by Joan Casadevall. The jury highlighted the historical and social approach adopted in the project, along with its sensitivity to the demands of local residents. The project attaches great importance to the value of the document in technical and executive planning as a tool to enable intervention in a historical centre while taking into account the morphological structure of the district, its green spaces, typological diversity and the configuration of the street on the basis of its façades.
In this same category, the jury considered that the Programmatic and urban study for the Citröen building, by the Belgian team of MS-A / Wessel De Jonge deserved a special mention for tackling the reuse of industrial heritage and for its recognition of modern architecture, inserting a new programme committed to a mixture of uses and interventions that engage with the existing building.

In Category D) Dissemination, the four short-listed entries were:

  • VerSus: Lessons of vernacular heritage in sustainable architecture, by the ESG / Escola Superior Gallaecia and Partners. Coordinated by Mariana Correia (Portugal)
  • Glèises en Encurnanclinc de la Vall d’Aran, by Josep Lluís i Ginovart, Agustí Costa Jover, Sergio Coll Pla and Mónica López Piquer (Vall d’Aran, Spain)
  • A Dissemination Strategy. “Peral” New Submarine Museum, by José Manuel Chacón Bulnes, Juan Ignacio Chacón Bulnes and Diego Quevedo Carmona (Cartagena, Spain)
  • Visitor information at the Amatller House Museum, by the Private Foundation Amatller Institute of Hispanic Art (Barcelona, Spain)

The winning entry was VerSus: Lessons of vernacular heritage in sustainable architecture, by the ESG / Escola Superior Gallaecia and Partners, coordinated by Mariana Correia (Portugal). The jury considered that the project brought together scientific study and a practical call for forms of construction which, while being traditional and heritage-based, are truly sustainable and contemporary. With a large and extremely professional multidisciplinary international team, VERSUS stands out in particular for the dissemination of vernacular architecture in all sorts of formats and on many levels, which it achieves by raising the awareness of the societies that inhabit it and by reaching out to the international scientific community.

The deadline for the call for entries for this third award was 28 April and the international jury made up of renowned experts in the field of intervention in Architectural Heritage has spent the time since then evaluating the entries to the four award categories. In Category A (Intervention in Existing Architectural Heritage), the architects Inês Vieira da Silva, Ignacio Pedrosa and Marc Aureli Santos evaluated 124 projects. In Category B (Exterior Spaces), the experts Ian Mcknight, Celestino García Braña and Pere Buil analysed 35 entries. In Category C (Planning), the professionals Alessandro Alì, Carles Enrich and Cristina Mata evaluated 11 entries, while in Category D (Dissemination), Carsten Hanssen, Fernando Cobos and Montserrat Villaverde studied 19 projects.
The 3rd European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA has been directed by Ramon Calonge, Oriol Cusidó, Marc Manzano and Jordi Portal (member architects of the AADIPA). The international character of the award has been consolidated with a large number of entries from abroad. Moreover, the overall quality of the entries has served to further strengthen its reputation and ratify its continuity.