On Friday 30 November, UIC Barcelona’s Aula Jardí played host to the final panel session in the 15th edition of the Ceramics Chair. This year, the course revolved around the topic “Ceramics and Water”, and the projects presented by the Architecture students addressed ways of filtering, channelling and containing water, with interesting results which included pervious walkways, cooling façades and roofs and ecological swimming pools. 

As part of the session, 13 fourth-year Architecture students presented before the panel the projects they had been working on for the past few months. The panel assembled for the 15 edition was made up of architects Pau Llimona and Javier Peña; the president of Rosa Gres, Marcel·lí Sugrañes; and Eva Pedrajas, a representative from ASCER. Other session participants included the director of the Chair, Vicenç Sarrablo, and coordinators and lecturers Cristina Garcia-Castelao and Jordi Roviras. 

At the end of the afternoon, the three winning projects were announced. One award went to student Cristina Prada for her project “Stela”, of which the panel praised “the relationship between geometry, ceramics and perception”. The panel also awarded a distinction to student Unai Mugarra for the project “Filter Frame”, making particular note of “the simplified system for building ecological swimming pools”. The final award went to Shama Slaoui for “Bieldi”, “an ergonomic system in which the material generates sensory stimuli”.

The UIC Barcelona School of Architecture’s Ceramics Chair has been going for the past 15 years thanks to the sponsorship of the Spanish Ceramic Tile Manufacturers' Association (ASCER). Its objective is to promote closer cooperation between the university and the Spanish ceramics industry, one of the most important in the world. In the words of gratitude offered by Vicenç Sarrablo at the end of the event, “this subject is a text-book example of teaching innovation in the field of architecture. Some of the items you see could become patents and end up on the market”.