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The School of Architecture hosted the 2nd SEALabHaus Regional Seminar on November 5, a key event within the European project SEALabHaus, funded by Interreg and aimed at creating the New Atlantic Area Laboratory. This laboratory is conceived as an international cooperation network among coastal regions of Ireland, France, Portugal, Galicia, and the Canary Islands, promoting innovation around blue tourism, maritime culture, and creative industries connected to the sea, in line with the principles of the New European Bauhaus.

Regional seminars are a core component of the project: they serve as collaborative spaces where researchers, public administrations, cultural organizations, tourism professionals, and citizens come together to jointly analyze the challenges and opportunities of the marine and coastal environment. Their aim is to support the development of the SEALab, while also consolidating an Atlantic community that shares experiences, generates knowledge, and designs joint strategies.

Following the first edition held in 2024—which introduced the project and laid the groundwork for this collaborative network—the second seminar marked a decisive step forward: it focused on advancing the Strategic Plan for Maritime Culture and Blue Tourism in the Canary Islands.

The day began with an institutional welcome by Lucía Martínez Quintana, lead researcher for the project in the Canary Islands, who then presented the results of the first year of work, highlighting progress made in building the Atlantic cooperation ecosystem and identifying strategic priorities for the archipelago.

Next, under the coordination of the ULPGC team—Juan Manuel Santana Pérez, Francisco Antonio García Pérez, and Alessandra Vignotto—members of the Regional Action Group (RAG) participated in a SWOT analysis, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to maritime culture and blue tourism in the Canary Islands. After a coffee break, the seminar continued with a CAME workshop, which transformed this diagnostic into concrete strategies to correct, address, maintain, and explore the identified factors.

The event concluded with a collective discussion of the outcomes and the definition of next steps. With this second seminar, the Canary Islands reaffirm their contribution to the SEALabHaus project and move forward in developing a solid strategic plan, aimed at a sustainable and innovative blue tourism model, deeply connected to the maritime identity of the archipelago.

The School of Architecture at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has been the setting for the assembly of a unique egg-shaped structure, built by first-year students of the course Systems of Representation. Guided by professors Fernando Molina, Elsa Gutiérrez, and Sara Sarmiento, the students constructed a jointed structure measuring 5 x 3.5 x 3.5 meters, allowing them to explore real-scale concepts of scale, geometry, spatial representation, and materiality.

The project, designed and calculated by Fernando Molina —a professor recently incorporated into the school— and developed with the collaboration of the teaching team of the course, has served as a voluntary academic exercise and, at the same time, as a prototype for a larger-scale installation. The structure has provided students with the opportunity to face the challenges of materializing ideas and managing a collaborative project with structural and professional assembly demands. The enthusiasm and active participation of the students have been key to successfully completing this phase of the work.

This piece is part of a future light installation that will be presented at the
Festival Fête des Lumières 2025, which will be held in Lyon from December 4 to 11. The final work will be developed and assembled by Fernando Molina along with architect and professor Álvaro López Rodríguez, from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. Participation in the festival represents international exposure for the project and an exceptional opportunity to showcase the educational talent of the ULPGC School of Architecture.

On Friday, November 21, our School will host a lecture by Dr. Architect Luis López Díaz, former Structures professor and a prominent figure in touristic and industrial architecture in the Canary Islands.

Luis López Díaz, who graduated from the School of Architecture of Barcelona, has combined an intense and renowned professional career as an architect with his teaching activity as a professor in the Construction Department of the School of Architecture of Las Palmas.

His professional trajectory, which began in the early 1970s, stands out especially in the field of touristic architecture, with projects such as the Santa Mónica Apartments, the Jardín del Atlántico Apartments, the Gloria Palace San Agustín Hotel and Thalassotherapy Center, the Gloria Palace Amadores Hotel, the Riu Palmeras Hotel, and several hotel developments in Anfi del Mar.

He has also carried out significant projects in the industrial sector, including the Frigo-Canarias Factory (1974) and the Miller Bajo car repair workshop, as well as the design of the social halls of the Club Natación Metropole in Las Palmas.

Some of his works have been published in specialized journals such as Informes de la Construcción, Basa, Star (Structural Architecture), and Cuaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme.

Second- and third-year students of the course Urban Planning, Spatial Planning and Urban Design Projects move their academic activity into the city with an open session in Tenor Stagno Square, in the context of the TAC! Urban Architecture Festival.