Ressò

The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) is taking part for the third year running in the Decathlon Europe Solar competition. The purpose of this international university student contest is to design and construct a self-sufficient housing prototype that runs on solar energy, incorporating the necessary technologies to allow maximum energy efficiency. Relating this prototype with a viable planning project, the competition faces today’s economic and ecological challenges by bringing an overall approach to architecture and sustainability.

The prototype guarantees the reduction of individual family consumption, improves social relations and offers free comfort, as the building runs mostly passively. We realise that the first step in urban rehabilitation is to modify the attitudes of the users, who respond to the metabolism of the dwelling and must also understand and learn the concepts involved in the strategy to be able to apply them individually and set off a process in the residents’ community that will bring about a new way of managing resources: water, heating, food, electricity, mobility and waste. Over time, low-energy community space represents an economic saving that can then be invested in the rehabilitation of private space. The process is individual and optimized for each family.

Specifically, the built proposal responds to the conditions of entry and analysis of the subsequent location of the prototype, Sant Muç, a low-density housing development in the town of Rubí (Barcelona). As a strategy, we see it as adaptable to various fabrics; depending on each context, it will take a different form.

The design and management team is made up of agents from various fields and disciplines. The action research group associated with the university is responsible for promoting the project, with the Council providing the necessary resources to ensure its viability.