My Story

What is
architecture?


Why I chose to become an architect?



What I would like to specialize and work when I will be one?




These are the questions that Salvador Lara asked us in the first class of the
subject "Introduction to Architecture" in the first course of the degree.
Full of ignorance, we all write our answers on paper and deliver it to him...
Salvador is very straightforward and can be intimidating, especially when he provoked the new students, he is the kind of teachers that  you will love him or you don’t like him,
but certainly he's not going to be remembered as one more. That day, more
than 100 students were in class, and I was one of the students he blushed. The reason? My
answer to the third question. Most students gave him a typical, generic and
unspecified anwers. I would not formulate correctly as I referred to the
cultural concept rather than the architecture one, but I made reference to
heritage preservation. Salvador works in that field and wanted to know why I was
interested and why I was sure about it just at the begin of my degree. I don't remember
my answer, probably because I haven’t yet.



Today, after almost 10 years, I understand why I chose to become an architect.
I always knew it, but I didn’t understand yet... My answer to the second
question was: by vocation. It was always clear in my mind, since I was a child.
I loved to draw and make my small models of houses with colored blocks to my
Playmobil, (I spent hours and continue for days doing that). I still remember
when I was so small and people asked me: what do you want to be when you grow
up?, I always replied with conviction: an architect! Most of them smile or laugh...
Obviously someone had to introduce me the concept, and that person was my
father. Before that my answer used to be a draftsman, painter or artist, until
one day my father said, "Lourdes, that has no future, you have to be an
architect and design houses." And I thought, he will be right, he’s my
father and I already design little houses. So I listened to my father
and, without really understand the meaning of the word "architect",
my studies became one of my priorities, because people told me all the time that to be one I had to study
hard and get good scores...

(Summers in Nova Canet Beach)

 

And that little girl grew up... She matriculated in Architectural School and she’s now an architect and can say that she’s it by vocation. Why in the field of
Heritage Preservation? Today I
can also answer that question. When
I used to draw, I was very good at
making replicas, exactly copies, of
other drawings, but when I was in front
of the white paper and trying to
create something new, I couldn’t continue.. I realized that the creation was not one of my skills, so I decided to help to preserve for the future the buildings that already existed and had some value that would make them deserve to endure.

 

(Anton's replica) 

 

In
addition, if I’m telling you that, despite I was baptized and moved at age of 11 to Canet d'en Berenguer, I was born and grew up in Sagunto... the answer is clear. I mean, my best childhood friend, Yeni, lived on the bottom of the mountain and every day after school, we went to her home and went out searching adventures or exploring the mountain, (outside the walls of the Roman Castle). My mother had forbidden me to go up there and probably this increase my curiosity. It was so innocent and ignorant that when we found some traces of ruins, I thought we were the first ones to see it and I figured what it must have been... About the Roman Theater in Sagunto, I’m going to
comment only a few things. I have a vague memory of sitting on the stones of the stands, before the intervention of the architect Giorgio Grassi and Manuel Portaceli, seeing my cousin Nieves in the presentation of her falla "El Palleter". After that, the next thing I remember, in reference to this, is one of my first tricks. I went with my other friend who lived on the mountain, Laura, and we decided to jump into the theatre from
the back,
and we did. Once seated in the stands, suddenly, the lights came on and scared, we started to move from one place to another, and the lights were following us... I'm sure that the security man would laugh a lot. But we didn’t, we escaped and without stopping for a second, we split and went to our respective homes. I still remember that I ran the "Carrer del Castell" down, and for a coincidence, a helicopter was flying around and I thought illusive: they must be looking for
us. In such adventure became that insignificant incident. Obviously, in those days I didn’t understand yet what the project in the
Roman Theatre represented.

 

(January 2012, Roman Castle of Sagunto, by Rosa Baeza) 

Returning to the main part of the discourse, now I'm an architect, but I can’t feel it
properly yet... Because even if I studied all my
life and I have the architecture degree under my arm, that’s not enough. The degree only provides you the basis to understand what comes next, the practice... the reality. However, it is absolutely essential to be in the University and meet teachers to guide us in it. From the beginning with Salvador Lara, continuing with Victoria Bonet, Fernando Aranda, and many others as Ivan Cabrera, Luisa Basset, Rafael Rivera, Jose Luis Ros... until Fernando Vegas and Camilla Mileto. Without forgetting the
ones I taught me to project, Eva M. Álvarez and
Juan Blat. With them I learned not to be afraid of the white paper, because there is nothing to create, everything is already invented; the important thing
is having good examples to guide us... So at the end I was also good projecting new
buildings because I'm
an expert copying ideas! Special mention for me had the Department of Architectural
Composition, obviously because it was my
favorite. I
learned that
intervention in the Roman Theatre of Sagunto, was a good example of what NOT to do. At the end of my degree I was lucky and
I colaborated with Mileto & Vegas, who offered me the opportunity to join a French archaeological mission in Syria twice. In some way, because of them I revived the spirit of exploration I had in my childhood, between Roman ruins again, but this time with the Euphrates in the background... With them I collaborated with Jose Luis Lerma in my first 3D laser scanner project.

(Sandstorm, Halabiya/Zenobia, Siria)

 

After
this, I
decided to go wherever
it will be necessary to work in the field I like. So I finished my degree, I started to learn how to use 3d laser scanner and I went to the UK for a year to learn English because it’s essential if
you are going to travel. Here
in Telscombe Manor, I fixed myself and
recovered the interior balance that I lost and I needed to continue.

 

(Telscombe Field, by Nicky Morris) 

 

In the summer of 2011 I moved to Venice, to collaborate with the architect Alberto Torsello. Because of him I want to be and expert of
Heritage Preservation using 3D laser scanner. He showed me the potential of this tool in the lecture he spoke to the Master of Restoration in Valencia in 2008. Later he would offer me the opportunity for another adventure, this time in Armenia for the study and survey of a monastery.

 

(Octubre 2011, Sanahin Monastery, Armenia) 

 

I
got an internship
in the first half of 2012 with a NYC based Architect and Laser Scan
Company, Actus3D, with John Smits. He teach me how to use the FARO Focus
scanner from the point of view of an architect and I start to see how
we can extract useful information from the point cloud to apply in a
posterior study. In this period I also participate in the SPAR
International Conference and write my first article in LIDAR magazine. 

 

(Scanning with Actus3D) 

In
NYC I also collaborated with Roz Li, from Li-Saltzmand Architects, who
show me a historic project in Manila and introduce me to Tina Paterno,
the Executive Director of Save San Sebastian Foundation. Then, I
traveled to the Philippines, where I volunteered on this
project to conserve San Sebastian Basilica.



Currently I am studying the Official Master's Degree in Preservation of Architectural Heritage in the Polytechnic
University of Valencia, Spain, with the intention of focus my final
thesis on a research to find more practical applications to extract from
the point cloud data to use in the study and restoration project.

 

Because
all of them, today I’m an architect and I arrive to this point...