For the second year in a row, 10 students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture travelled to the Swiss city of Biel to take part in a week-long workshop at the headquarters of CEMEX, a world leader in the construction materials industry.

The visit, which marks the end of the subject Climate Concrete, took place from 11 to 17 January. The students were supervised by subject lecturer Oriol Paris and were accompanied by several workers from the Swiss company, who discussed the features that make concrete, subject to a continuous process of innovation, such a fundamental construction material.

The workshop began with a general presentation on cement as a construction material, with emphasis on the different types of cement, shuttering, additives, pigments, etc. Students then had the opportunity to design and develop a model façade from porous concrete, based on its use in the restoration of façades. After numerous trials and tests, the students were finally able to design a 1:3 scale prototype using tools provided by the CEMEX innovation workshop. “It offers the chance to look at the material from all angles: composition, design, the development of ideas. This way, the students have the opportunity to test it in the workshop of one of the world’s leading companies in the application of cement in the fields of architecture, business, design and construction”, highlights Marta Guixé Armengol, a student at the School of Architecture. 

This is the second time that students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture have participated in this kind of workshop at CEMEX’s Swiss headquarters. The purpose of the initiative is to help Architecture students discover the values and properties of a material that is essential in the field of construction and has not ceased to evolve in recent years, presenting it as a versatile constructive element and a functional part of environmental strategies.