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Arquitectes de Capçalera (“Local Architects”, a play on words using the Catalan term for a family doctor) emerged from the Design III-IV course 'Housing and the City' taught at the ETSAB. The initiative was initially conceived as a two-week workshop but in recent years it has become a mechanism for analysing the specific reality of places and their inhabitants. For the last three years, groups of about 30 third-year architecture students have visited Barcelona neighborhoods such as the Raval and Bellvitge in order to seek solutions that improve the relationship between residents and the buildings in which they live. The initiative aims to provide architecture students with knowledge of the problems of buildings and the needs of their inhabitants.

The buildings are analysed as a whole and in relation to the public spaces where they are located. Proximity to the residents and knowledge of their concerns from the global perspective of the building allow students to detect shortcomings and offer solutions.

Knowing the physical and social fabric seems a good strategy prior to any intervention. Seeking proximity and a direct relationship between users and the students has proven to be an enriching and useful activity for everyone. Through discussion of ideas and drafting of proposals, an attempt is made to provide a specific and immediate response to the problems of housing and its relationship with the public space.

At a time of difficulties and uncertainties for the architectural profession, the success of the Arquitectes de Capçalera educational programme has marked a paradigm shift. Its success is twofold: first, the UPC's architecture students are empowered by practising their future profession and becoming aware of its social utility; second, residents of depressed neighbourhoods find that architects can provide solutions for their daily lives.

Arquitectes de Capçalera also offers a wide variety of approaches to the urgent question of housing in Barcelona. It does so from a new perspective, accepting the complexities of the situations and giving the final recipients of the architecture the centrality they deserve.

"In 2013, amid the real estate crisis, a group of ETSAB professors decided to break barriers and get out of the School in an attempt to bring students and users closer together. Students discovered the city’s various problems and turned it into an object of work and study", explains Pere Joan Ravetllat, a professor at the ETSAB, course director of 'Housing and the City' and one of the members of the Arquitectes de Capçalera group. "It's a direct relationship because students learn and the people understand that the University is offering them tools for improvement".

"This City of Barcelona Prize was not awarded for a particular project but rather for an attitude of trying to be useful to the user and to bring the University closer to society", he concludes.

The jury of the City of Barcelona Prize, which was presented at 7 p.m. on 15 February in the Saló de Cent, Barcelona City Hall, was composed of David Bravo, Olga Tarrasó, Carme Pinós and Meritxell Inaraja.
The City of Barcelona Prizes are given annually by the Barcelona City Council for high-quality creation, research and production carried out in Barcelona by artists or groups of artists who work there, or by institutions and organisations in Barcelona that promote or produce such work.

The winning works must contribute to the development of culture and must be integrated in the civic fabric in which the artists, associations, public institutions and cultural industries are involved.