The campaign aims to raise awareness of the need to improve buildings and homes to improve the health of their residents, and publicize the existence of Next Generation funds to undertake renovations
‘Investing in architecture is improving your health’. The maxim is not only the slogan of the new one Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC) campaign to improve the health of homes in Barcelona and consequently that of its inhabitants, but it is also a historical fact. They are there to attest to it. Cerdà plan or the Dispensari Antituberculós de Sert, Torres Clavé and Subirana, among others.
The first was an urgent need for the city to tear down the walls to ventilate and decongest the intramural space and, thus, eradicate everything unhealthy that Barcelona treasured. The distribution of the Eixample plot – with sunny homes and cross ventilation – also had a lot of hygienist theory. As did the Dispensari Antituberculós, a building that was built to respond to the health crisis that tuberculosis represented at the time and prevent contagion.
Now, the tandem architecture and health asks for prominence again hand in hand with the COAC, the city council and the Next Generation funds with a campaign that aims to raise awareness about how the state of buildings and homes directly affects the health of their inhabitants and how improving one improves the other. And to help this, the Next Generation funds.
70% of the flats in the city do not comply with the Basic Building Standard of 1980 in regard to the insulation of the facades
From the outset, a few data that give an idea of the importance of urban regeneration and rehabilitation in a housing stock, the one in Barcelona, which is not prepared to deal gracefully neither with climate change nor with the environmental crisis: 70% of the apartments in the city do not meet the basic building standard of 1980 in regard to the insulation of the facades; in households with energy poverty – 10% in the city – the chances of getting sick are doubled; and the air of poorly ventilated indoor spaces are between two and five times more polluted than outdoor space.
what to do and how
There are more aspects that poorly or well managed represent an improvement not only in energy consumption and expenditure, but also in the quality of life of households: the acoustics, lighting, accessibility, electromagnetic hygiene, materials… The solutions to rehabilitate exist and the architects have them. And part of the amount to face it is provided by the Next Generation funds aimed at both individuals and neighborhood communities.
So that citizens know what can be done and how, At the same time that they know, for example, that lighting homes to the beat of natural light and biological rhythms – whiter light in the morning and warmer and less intense light at night – prevents insomnia, the COAC has launched the aforementioned information campaign –’Investing in architecture is to improve your health’– and has begun to lead by example by renovating its headquarters in Plaça Nova.
In the large polygons built in the 50s and 60s, energy efficiency is almost zero while monthly energy consumption is extremely high.
It is about eliminating toxic materials such as fiber cement and providing it with proper insulation in order to make it more comfortable for those who work there and more environmentally sustainable by reducing the carbon emissions it generates. An individual good that generates a public good.
vulnerable neighborhoods
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Next Generation funds also have a game with the broadest focus: vulnerable neighborhoods that need public intervention and rehabilitation. Here the baton is carried by the town hall, which is the one who receives this item, through the Urban Regeneration Plan and focuses on neighborhoods with social, environmental and housing problems. they are the big ones housing estates built in the 50s and 60s with significant construction deficits and in which energy efficiency is almost zero while monthly energy consumption is extremely high.
The proposal is to intervene as much as possible in the buildings to achieve more comfort and sustainability without having to throw out the neighbors. And here again the figures that relate health and architecture appear: the population with mental illness adds up to 15% on average in Barcelona, but among people with housing problems the figure rises to 80%;_and the districts of Nou Barris and Ciutat Vella are the ones with the highest rates of energy poverty and the worst social and health indicators. For this reason, the council has begun to work in the neighborhoods of Trinitat Vella and El Besòs i El Maresme; has Canyelles in study and Can Peguera as a project for the immediate future.