Dr Carmen Mendoza Arroyo, Assistant Director of the School of Architecture, Director of the Area of Urbanism and Co-Director of the Master's degree in Cooperation, and the architect Sandra Bestraten, also Co-Director of the Master's degree in Cooperation,participated in a round table entitled “Labs within Academia” as part of the worldwide UN-Habitat meeting entitled “Urban Labs: A tool for integrated and participative urban planning” which took place in Barcelona on 2 and 3 February 2016.
This objective of this “Labs within Academia” seminar was to generate an exchange of opinions between international experts on the role of researchers, academic institutions and urban laboratories, as well as the involvement of universities in urban planning and development problem. The talk given by the directors of the Master's degree in Cooperation focused on the methodologies that are implemented throughout the course, with the aim of bringing students and their academic work closer to real problems in the areas of urban planning and development. Likewise, they provided examples of how through fieldtrips and workshops in various developing countries, the Master's has cooperated with local administrations and cities in order to tackle contemporary problems and challenges in the context of both emergencies (post-disaster and post-conflict) and physical and social exclusion.
The UN.Habitat “Urban Labs: A tool for integrated and participative urban planning” proposes and implements urban planning projects at a neighbourhood, city and global level.This laboratory supports the local, regional and national authorities in terms of the implementation of policies, plans and designs through participatory planning processes. This is done in order to achieve more compact, better integrated and connected cities, which promote equitable and sustainable urban development, which are resiliant to climate change.
