The UPC will have a new building on the Diagonal within three years

Barcelona"We are in a complicated maintenance situation and we need a space to be able to transfer the activity." This is how the rector of the UPC, Daniel Crespo, has justified one of the major projects of his mandate, which ends this very 2025: the new building on the Diagonal Sud Campus. The L tower will be the new building for the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industrial (ETSEIB), it will have 9 floors and, in principle, will be a reality in three years. "We believe it will be ready at the end of 2027 or beginning of 2028," he explained.

The new tower will be built on the existing building, with only two floors, next to the characteristic towers of the campus that can be seen from the Diagonal itself. The building, designed by architects Eduard Gascón and Elies Rull (TAC Arquitectos), Luís Alegre and Lluís Lloveres (A&LL) and TYPSA, in collaboration with BBG+ Ecopenta, will cost 54 million euros. It will be a completely square and partially transparent tower, as it will have photovoltaic panels on the façade and roof that will protect the building from the sun and, at the same time, generate 40% of the energy it will consume. The works on this new project will also involve the pacification of Pau Gargallo street, which is just behind the future tower.

Crespo has clarified that the main objective of the construction of the new building is not to expand the university or accommodate more students. In fact, at the moment the mission of the L tower will be to accommodate all the activity of the H building, which is made up of the two towers that can be seen from the Diagonal, in order to be able to start work on the rehabilitation and maintenance of this already emblematic construction of the School of Industrial Engineering.

It is expected that the works will begin at the end of the year, when all the necessary permits from the Barcelona City Council have been obtained, and that the building will be a reality within three years. However, the parish priest has also explained that the idea of ​​the UPC is that as the new building is built, the teaching activity can be transferred from one construction to another. "The building is built on foundations and basements that have activity and, therefore, it must be possible to build in a way that is compatible with the activity of the school," Crespo insisted.

The duty of infrastructures

Among the problems Crespo has explained that the H building has, which will have to be rehabilitated, are "water leaks and problems with the interior finishes", because it was built "with qualities for the time". Crespo has acknowledged that "if maintenance could have been carried out over the years" it probably would not have reached the point of considering "rehabilitating" the building.

The rector of the UPC has admitted that the majority of the 92 buildings of the university need "significant improvements", so a study has been carried out to determine the needs of each building and a package of 27 million euros is to be launched to improve them.

Crespo has also recalled that the majority of Catalan universities have problems with infrastructure maintenance due to their age. In this regard, the regional minister for Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, has acknowledged that there is "a situation with a very substantial space for improvement". However, he insisted that "the Government has a firm commitment to respond to the university infrastructure plan" through the plan Leads that the executive presented a few weeks ago.