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REAL ESTATE, NEXUS GROUP, INFORMS.

We value more and more and have been gaining awareness of how the quality of the spaces we inhabit, our homes, public space, our cities and our surroundings affect our lives. Certainly, the improvement of well-being, health and even happiness of people is related to the quality of architecture.

Climate change, everyone's right to decent housing, the conservation of our heritage and our signs of identity, the protection of our environment, are enormous challenges that we are currently facing and require a response based on quality criteria. , which constitute the best guarantee of success in the face of a challenge that requires coordinated action by all.

On January 28, 2022, the beginning of the parliamentary process of the draft Law on Quality of Architecture was approved, highlighting the public participation process developed in December 2020, in which the Colleges of Architects, coordinated by the Superior Council, carried out important work with your contributions.

The content of the law highlights the importance of quality architecture through a legal framework that guarantees its implementation through mechanisms that allow the consideration of the general interest of architecture to become a reality, something that has been claimed for a long time. by the agents of the sector and society as a whole.

Our homes must be capable of responding to our life project and satisfying our ever-changing needs: the functionality and flexibility of the spaces, the necessary lighting and ventilation, accessibility or adequate technical conditions in terms of thermal insulation. or acoustic. That our towns and cities have nearby basic services, avoiding unnecessary displacements; that public spaces invite you to walk and that they are friendly, accessible and safe has a direct impact on our health and well-being.

In the last decade, the framework established by the United Nations 2030 Agenda for sustainable development proposes an action plan in favor of people, the planet and prosperity with the intention of strengthening universal peace and access to justice or the achievement of the necessary social, economic and environmental balance and places architecture and urban planning as key and necessary elements for achieving these objectives.

The intimate relationship between the well-being of our society and the quality of life of all people with the quality of the design and construction or rehabilitation of the public and private spaces we inhabit has become even more evident, if possible, as a consequence of the experience lived with the confinement derived from the covid pandemic.

In this sense, the future law converts an apparently intangible value such as the quality of architecture and the built environment into a public policy at the service of citizens, as has already been done by some autonomous communities that have approved specific legislation, such as they are Extremadura and Catalonia, or they are being promoted by Galicia or Andalusia.

To value and protect it is necessary to know and appreciate. For this reason, the preliminary draft of the Law on the Quality of Architecture establishes the duty of Public Administrations to preserve it, disseminate it and promote it in "society as a whole from an early age", intensifying efforts to improve knowledge of architecture and design. development, its promotion and greater awareness and training of the agents involved and the public regarding urban and landscape architectural culture, thus promoting the sensitivity of all in the care of our environment and its protection for future generations.

To achieve these goals, the future standard includes two new bodies: the House of Architecture and the Architecture Quality Council.

We must highlight and value the role that Architecture has in fields as diverse as engineering, economics, urban planning, the environment, design and art. The explanatory memorandum of the future law itself highlights: "Betting on architectural quality, both in urban and rural environments, means recognizing, first of all, the cultural dimension, as an intellectual, artistic and professional performance, of a discipline that affects transversally in multiple aspects of sustainability”.

To do this, it is necessary to generate adequate working conditions for professionals in the sector, who must feel the recognition of society for a work that is enormously committed to it and to the common good.

The necessary exemplary role of Public Administrations must be highlighted, especially in responsible public procurement aligned with these objectives 

issue that is reflected in the articles and some of the final provisions of the draft.

The urgent challenges that we had before the pandemic, the necessary renovation of our building stock, improvements in accessibility and renovation of our cities to alleviate the already apparent effects of climate change through the implementation of the Spanish Urban Agenda, have Now, with the Next Generation funds, a unique opportunity to promote it in Component 2 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and, within it, the future Architecture Quality Law is included as a necessary regulation to help consolidate the new transition model towards a more sustainable and just society.

From the CSCAE, we appreciate and value the work carried out by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda and, in particular, by the General Directorate of Urban Agenda and Architecture for the processing of this law.

Given that it includes issues of indisputable value for all in line with European initiatives such as the Davos Declaration in 2018 or the New European Bauhaus that promote the defense of cultural heritage, the bond between people or the quality of our environment, we are sure that the text will have broad parliamentary support.

The future law will place our country in a position of world leadership, since it defines and publicly highlights the general interest of architecture "for its contribution to the creation of cultural identity, quality of life, well-being, cohesion and social inclusion and health”.