Escuela de Politécnica Superior

Given the immersion of cities in a global situation of social emergency since the latest environmental and health events, current research on increasing the quality of life of citizens has become a priority in the attempt to provide the set of sustainable strategic conditions that must be met in favour of the necessary urban regeneration associated with the improvement of the habitable environment. Thus, being directly concerned by this matter, the construction of new buildings will have to follow concordant dynamics aiming at the improvement of the quality of life of their users and of the city as a whole, thus contributing to their mandatory healthy, habitable and equitable nature. It is necessary to redefine in the design of buildings certain potential criteria with a positive effect on the quality of life. These can be grouped into the following five key factors that define architectural work in relation to its habitability conditions: identity, character, image, materiality and implementation. These quality-of-life descriptors are assessed in a particular building, which serves as a real case study as follows: the new town hall of Estepona (Malaga, Spain). The aim is to provide an answer to the potential use of indicators that determine the improvement of the quality of life provided by a building in the city as a whole. The fact that it is a public building also turns it into a model of management that is consistent with the requirements of sustainable environmental progress in the general interest of a socially just city.

Utilization of the energy obtained through the recreational use of the leisure zones by means of human-powered traction using mini-bike pedals as a renewable source intended to produce accumulative energy. Energy is generated through the physical and sporty activity of pedalling. Such energy is subsequently accumulated in batteries using two alternators for its later use transforming it into environmental conditioning and lighting. A system capable of transforming physical exercise into power generation intended for lighting, artificial shade, and coolness is proposed. This system provides a solution to obtain artificial shade and coolness by means of the nebulization of water vapour in environments of hard urbanism, which allows humanizing the city through a participative citizen action. Such nebulization is obtained through the process of transforming the human renewable source of pedaling into energy for environmental conditioning and hygrothermal comfort through a bioclimatic strategy. A study is carried out in order to analyse the bioclimatic conditions of the environment in order to create urban facilities, which guarantee optimal habitability conditions by taking advantage of those factors, which provide quality of life and social development, such as environmental aesthetics, level of environmental stress, pedestrian areas, and leisure zones, among others. In the recent past years, the design of urban facilities, which encourage social relations and a healthy life, is in increasing evolution referring to the first designs installed in the parks and gardens of the cities. However, nowadays there is not system capable of integrating more significantly physical exercise and power generation intended for lighting, artificial shade, and coolness.