The CTBUH (Council for High-rise Building and Urban Habitat), with Ortiz.León Arquitectos as Spanish representative, hosts the first Local event: “High-rise buildings in Spain: New or Renovated. What is the best way to be sustainable and prepared for the future?

Hosted at COAM on March 20 to a full capacity, the event is the first in a series of national talks on high-rise buildings. Discussions highlighted the importance of decision-making at both city and building design levels, including the promotion of high-rise buildings as part of a densification strategy for new and renovated buildings to foster sustainability and the ecological transition, in the context of the upcoming CTBUH international conference. conference in London and Paris in September 2024.

After a welcome message from the dean of COAM, Sigfrido Herráiz, the session began:

Iñigo Ortiz, co-founder of Ortiz.León Arquitectos, gave a speech listing the main challenges facing the sector at the moment, after which he gave way to Antony Wood, president of CTBUH who showed the way forward in construction in height with the ten fundamental principles that high-rise buildings must follow.

Antony presented examples, as well as interesting and innovative studies that are being worked on from university research.

The session was followed by Naiara Vegara, director of the Metropoli Cities Lab. In her intervention, various proposals were analyzed that outline a more interconnected, more human and more livable city. After her, Mark Fenwick, partner at Fenwick Iribarren Architects, reviewed the best practices in height applied to universities with his latest building, Caleido, headquarters of the prestigious IE University, as an example.

The debate, in this case about sustainable mobility, continued with TK Elevators, with Javier Sesma and Pedro Martín. Finally, María Concepción Pérez Gutiérrez, Doctor in Architecture and professor at the San Pablo CEU Polytechnic University, shared with the attendees the “Dissemination of High-Rise Culture in Spain” Week experience.

To end the event, Iñigo Ortiz presented the poster for Skyscrapers in Spain in 2024:

SPANISH HIGH RISE BUILDINGS by HEIGHT_20.3.24.pdf

The initiative included a welcome cocktail during lunch, followed by presentations and concluded with a networking coffee.

The sessions, which were held in English and with simultaneous translation into Spanish, aimed to promote the work of the council worldwide as well as bring together in a single forum all those agents in the sector interested in high-rise buildings to evaluate together the progress of the transition towards a more sustainable city in Madrid and Spain in general.

The event was organized within the CTBUH Local Talks cycle and has been sponsored by a total of 11 companies, all of them very prominent in the sector: TVITEC-CRICURSA, ENAR, INASUS, MARTIFER, SAINT GOBAIN, SAN JOSÉ, SCHUCO, SCW, SIGNIFY, TKE elevators and VALLADARES engineering.

You can find the link to the recording of the conference on our YouTube channel Event: High-Rise Buildings in Spain: New or Renew? (youtube.com) on the CTBUH website: 2024 International Conference Launch Event – CTBUH. amd all the photos: All event photos

Below, you can read the main ideas that have been drawn from this event:

Iñigo Ortiz

“More than 2 billion people who live in cities need their buildings, where they live, work and play, to be renovated in the next 30 years, driven by flexibility in uses, spaces, technology, comfort and zero carbon emissions.”

“Architectural Design will focus on creativity, AI and Big Data without forgetting the Green-Well-Happiness trinomial.”

Antony Wood

“The first principle for good skyscraper design is that tall buildings should relate to the specific characteristics of the site; physically, environmentally and culturally.”

“We need to challenge conventional functions within skyscrapers and bring all aspects of the city to the high-rise building.”

Naiara Vegara

“Selective densification strategies can be a tool for the creation of places and cities.”

“Eco boulevards encourage the urban regeneration of the main roads in the city center to act as linear densification strategies. “It suggests the transformation from automobile infrastructure to integrated, pedestrian-friendly urban infrastructure.”

Mark Fenwick

“Humanizing level 0.00 is the right way to achieve human horizontal connectivity and urban comfort.”

“The Caleido tower has demonstrated that a Vertical University Campus is feasible with a correct combination of other uses in a simple, powerful, elegant and geometric architectural form.”