The TechDay 2025 conference series, under the title “Exploration towards Urban Symbiogenesis,” offers a space for reflection on the profound challenges facing our cities today and the role of design and engineering as tools for planning more resilient, sustainable, and multispecies urban futures. In the face of global issues such as climate change and tourist saturation in urban environments, it is essential to imagine new city models that go beyond the anthropocentric paradigm. From this perspective, the event proposes urban symbiogenesis as a conceptual framework from which to rethink the city as a living, interdependent, and constantly changing ecosystem.
The conference is configured as a space where theory and practice intersect, seeking to activate critical thinking, experimentation, and creative action around the city of the future: a city that is no longer understood just as a territory of control or consumption, but as a dynamic fabric of relationships between species, infrastructures, technologies, and landscapes in transformation.
TechDay is included in the program of teaching activities for the Bachelor in Industrial Design Engineering. The Design and Experimentation Project subject organizes an annual knowledge event focused on a specific topic. The aim is to offer a broad overview of all possible factors for inspiration on new design proposals to students and theme-related professionals.
Programa
3:15 pm – Access
3.30 pm – Introduction to the conferences by Alberto Ibañez
4.00 pm – Lecture by Gabi Martínez: How to narrate the new city
4:30 pm – Lecture by Maite Iriondo: Oasis and Denvelops Pergola
5:00 pm – Lecture by David Masip Vilà: Batlleiroig
5:30 pm – Break
6:00 pm – Dialogue and debate
6:30 pm – Final
Lecture by Gabi Martínez: How to narrate the new city
In his conference, he raises various questions: how to narrate the new city, who tells us about physical spaces, and what cities we are going to talk about from now on. He will also reflect on whether the stories we tell ourselves determine the places we inhabit and on the role that flora and fauna play in envisioning future urban planning.
Gabi Martínez is a writer. His work, translated in ten countries and adapted in different formats, has received several awards and recognitions, highlighting his non-fiction books Sólo para gigantes, Un cambio de verdad, En la Barrera, Naturalmente urbano, Lagarta and the novels Sudd, Voy and Las defensas. Delta was chosen as the best book in 2023 by the literary magazine WMagazine. Main character of the chapter “Colombian massif” in the documentary series Finding Encanto, awarded with a Dolphin at the Cannes Festival. Director of the Festival LiterNatura (UNESCO award) and codirector of the Animales invisibles project.
Lecture by Maite Iriondo: Oasis and Denvelops Pergola
In this talk, the speaker presents two innovative and sustainable engineering projects: Oasis and the Denvelops pergola. On the one hand, Oasis is a comprehensive solution for transforming marine infrastructure into oases of biodiversity through its BioBoosting System (BBS) of micro-reefs. Its goal is to regenerate marine ecosystems and evaluate their impact on biodiversity, CO₂ capture, and water quality in real time. On the other hand, the Denvelops pergola is an innovative shading system designed to reduce heat in urban environments where it is not possible to plant trees, offering a temporary and sustainable solution during the hottest months.
Maite Iriondo is an Engineer in Industrial Design from Elisava (Barcelona) and an Official Master in Technological Product Design from LCI (Barcelona). With more than nine years of experience in research and design in multisectoral projects, she specializes in aesthetic and eco-design solutions. She has collaborated on national and European R&D projects within the framework of H2020 and is co-author of two patents.
Lecture by David Masip Vilà: Batlleiroig
The presentation will show how Batlleiroig, an architecture firm in Barcelona, works with a multi-scale view of the territory, developing resilient urban projects. Examples such as the Garraf store or the Rambla Girada in Vilafranca del Penedès transcend sustainability, generating urban contexts capable of adapting to climate challenges and promoting authentic urban regeneration processes.
David Masip Vilà has been an architect since 2018, graduating from the UPC’s Barcelona School of Architecture and with a Master in Technological Innovation in Architecture. Since 2021, he has been teaching at various universities in Barcelona, giving courses related to sustainable construction. He is currently the director of the sustainability department at Batlleiroig and is also completing his doctoral studies in the Department of Architectural, Building Construction and Urbanism Technology at UPC.
