Guanajuato, Gto., June 13, 2017.- For the third year in a row, students from the Department of Architecture of the Division of Architecture, Art and Design (DAAD) of Campus Guanajuato of the University of Guanajuato (UG), made a collaborative work with the National School of Architecture and Landscape of Bordeaux, France; this time in the city of Martignas, scenario to study the improvement of the public space.

The coordinator of this year's activity, Dr. Velia Yolanda Ordaz Zubia, professor at DAAD, reminded that since 2014, they signed the agreement of cooperation between Guanajuato and Bordeaux to work with topics related with their respective metropolitan areas. From there, an agreement between the National School of Architecture and Landscape of Bordeaux (ENSAP) and the Department of Architecture derived to work as a workshop with major degree students.

Like so, to the date, they have had three workshops: the first in February 2015, the second in February 2016 and a third in 2017. The first two exercises were made in the city of León, one in the Barrio del Santuario and another in the Barrio de San Juan de Dios, with the coordination of Dr. Miguel Ángel García Gómez, and in 2017 was in the city of Bordeaux.

The purpose of each exercise is, parting from a collaborative methodology, the students relate and interact with neighbors from the neighborhoods they worked in, so they sensitize with the space, local identity, everyday activities and, parting from that, identify the needs of the habitants to generate a diagnosis and a conceptual proposition.

These proposals are presented in the zone where it was worked, to interact with the actors, issue proposals and receive feedback, everything with the purpose to improve the public space.

The 2017 Workshop

This year, thanks to the invitation of Martin Chenot, Director of the École nationale supérieure dárchitecture et de paysage de Bordeaux, the students Katherine Princz Hablutzel, Daniel Stefano Montenegro Villanueva, Rodrigo Sebastián Godínez Hernández, Gerardo Enrique Garnica Calzada, César Octavio Alarcón Solano and Brenda Aracely Cárdenas Durán traveled to France.

The group was accompanied by M. José Alberto Ochoa Ramírez and Dr. Velia Yolanda Ordaz Zubia to participate in the event coordinated by Carlos Gotlieb, of ENSAP; with total support from Dr. Francisco Javier González Compeán, Director of DAAD and Architect José Moya Santiago, Director of the Department of Architecture.

The workshop was held from May 15 to 19, 2017, in an exercise called "Martignas s'ouvre vers la Jalle: conception d'espaces publics et réappropriation citoyenne" (public spaces and appropriation), where the city of Martignas was the scenario to study, open to proposals of spaces to coexist in downtown, and surroundings of the Jalle river.

This week, students from ENSAP as well as from the Department of Architecture visited the places, understand the needs of the population and work in the workshop, coexistence and collaboration with students from other nationalities. On Friday 19, they presented the proposals to habitants of Martignas, an enriching event, with an exchange of opinions.

"The experience was very intense, to discover new places, travel with people interested in the same as you: the city, architecture, history, urbanism. Is total satisfaction, concretely, I met and learnt from the Bordeaux students, from their professors, from the workers of Bordeaux-Metropol and from my partners in Guanajuato", mentioned Katherine Princz.

Daniel Stefano Montenegro mentioned that the experience left a lot of learning, "reality everything was very enriching for the professional and human formation, know how they address the problems with students from other countries and they way to solve them, is something that widens the perspective, beside the get-along, the music, the food, sense of humor... we made good friends, no doubt."

Brenda Cárdenas highlighted the work made and the agreements that had to be made in a team with very different ideas, since the space they got was next to the church so it was very important for the place to adapt to the symbol of the city, "what we did was to propose a plaza with much more vegetation so it would be pleasant for people who would like to remain for a while there."

Gerardo Garnica considered "an honor" to participate in this group, besides that it was his first time outside the country "and it was the perfect moment to collaborate with colleague architects from another part in the world, my workshop team was formed by an Italian, a Moroccan woman, a Chinese woman, two French women and a Mexican friend from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; our proposal had the objective to create the sense of belonging that didn't exist in Martignas."

"Both in the week at Guanajuato as the week in Bordeaux, we gave everything from us to give the group of college students and the users in the intervened zones, a worthy project that could be considered soon, the cultural exchange among the Mexican and foreign students, is something you cannot measure, I leave satisfied of these workshops and I hope it continues", mentioned Sebastián Godínez.

Finally, César Alarcon considered that this workshop was a great opportunity to learn, since these spaces promote the international cooperation, and in synthesis, highlighted the role of students by setting the name of the University of Guanajuato and the Department of Architecture high, with their outstanding participation in such an important event.