Foros ESARQ 2014: Transformations.

"When we talk about Transformations, we talk about the starting point, the beginning of the road back to what each person considers to be essential. The origin of these sessions aims to pin down our intentions to what is strictly necessary. It looks at the source of concepts and emotions that we know and feel." says Jorge Vidal, Director Foros ESARQ 2014. "The literal meaning of the word transform is to “change from one form to another”. Architects create form, and the processes through which changes, adjustments, variations, developments and transgressions take place. Taking into account all these aspects together with their degree of importance, their involvement in the territory, the landscape, the city, housing, what already exists and so forth. This reflection has become an important effort to undertake in our times, because of the general over-saturation o f everything around us."

Opens the series “Foros Esarq 2014: Transformations” the architect and urban planner Pietro Laureano, UNESCO consultant, expert in arid regions and traditional planning techniques.

An oasis can be restored by the human hand or retrieve ancient techniques of water harvesting systems, the Italian architect Pietro Laureano invites us into a sustainable architecture that is allied with the landscape even when it seems the most hostile.

Lecture.- "Eco mimicry, the architecture of the fusion: design with Traditional Knowledge".
Venue.- Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de la Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (ESARQ-UIC) Aula Magna -C/ Immaculada, 22, 08017 Barcelona.
Date.- Monday, February 3, 2014 - 7.00 pm.

Pietro Laureano, an architect and urban planner, is a UNESCO consultant for arid regions, water management, Islamic civilization and endangered ecosystems. He lived eight years in the Sahara, engaged in the study and restoration of oases in Algeria. In numerous essays and books published since the late 1980s, he has demonstrated that oases are the result of human ingenuity, and that they represent a heritage of technical knowledge to combat aridity and a model of sustainable management for the entire planet.

He has coordinated and managed projects based on the recovery of the ancient techniques of water harvesting systems with various international organizations throughout the Mediterranean, and in Yemen, Mauritania and Ethiopia. In particular, he has rebuilt the water systems of Petra, in Jordan, contributing to the UNESCO plan for ‘Greater Petra’, and restored canals and drainage systems in the monolithic town of Lalibela, Ethiopia, as team leader of the UNESCO and World Monument Fund (WMF) projects.

He is founder and coordinator of Ipogea, Centre for Studies on Traditional Knowledge, a non-profit organization based in Florence and Matera that carries out projects to preserve landscape through the use of ancient systems such as dry stone terraces, water harvesting cisterns and catchment tunnels.

He is part of the work group responsible for drafting the new UNESCO Landscape Convention. As Italian representative on the Technical-Scientific Committee of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and as Chairman of the Panel for Traditional Knowledge, he has promoted the creation of a World Bank of Traditional Knowledge and its Innovative Use (www.tkwb.org). This initiative is being pursued with UNESCO through the creation of the International Traditional Knowledge Institute (ITKI), based in Florence, which will have a decisive role in shaping the new Landscape Convention.