On 1 March, first-year students from the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture were given a tour of the Breinco factory, a company located in the town of Llinars del Vallès, in the province of Barcelona, which specialises in the manufacture of concrete products and urban pavements. The students were accompanied by School of Architecture lecturer Jordi Roviras, supervising professor of the subject Introduction to Architectural Construction.  

During the visit, the students were given a tour of the facilities by Gemma Pagès, director of the Technical and Communications Department at Breinco, who gave them a first-hand look at the innovative process of manufacturing concrete urban paving products. Students also had the chance to visit the granite quarry, located near the factory, and the laboratory of the company, one of the first to promote new solutions for improving urban spaces.

“The aim of this kind of visit is to bring future architects and industry closer together”, explains Professor Roviras, who went on to say that, “It is important to show students how important the industries are in the construction sector, with their broad range of solutions and products: those manufactured using traditional materials, those that optimise these traditional materials and those which use new materials”.

The tour of the Breinco plant is just one in a lengthy roster of similar activities held as part of the subject Introduction to Architectural Construction. During the theory section of the course, first-year Architecture students also have the opportunity to visit the Ceràmiques Piera ceramic pavement production plant and the Germans Gabarró plant, which specialises in the manufacture of wood flooring.