MWCC has been present, as a member of the Advisory Council of the UIA Madrid 2022 International Forum, in the presentation of the forum itself, which will make Madrid the epicenter of the international debate to address the global problem of access to housing. Under the slogan Affordable Housing Activation: Removing Barriers (AHA Madrid 2022), the event aims to promote international coordination, creating a collaborative, innovative, avant-garde and paradigmatic framework that will allow the analysis and synthesis of proposals in order to determine the status current access to housing and possible lines of action in the medium and long term. All this with an inclusive, analytical, rigorous and transversal perspective.

The UIA 2022 International Forum will be activated from next January, by promoting parallel activities around the world, and will culminate, in Madrid, from May 18 to 20, in a meeting that will bring together experts. international organizations in the fields of architecture, engineering, economics, urban planning, the environment, sociology, design and art. Promoted by the International Union of Architects (UIA) and the Higher Council of the Colleges of Architects of Spain (CSCAE), it has the support of the Government, through the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda; the Community of Madrid and the City Council, and the collaboration of UN-Hábitat.

The official presentation of the UIA 2022 Affordable Housing Activation International Forum: Removing Barriers was attended by Íñaqui Carnicero, General Director of Agenda Urbana y Arquitectura; and in which they have participated: José María García Gómez, Deputy Minister of Housing of the Community of Madrid; Álvaro González López, councilor of the delegated area of ​​Housing of the Madrid City Council; Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN-Habitat; Robert Lewis-Lettington, Chief, Land, Housing and Shelter Section. Secretary, Global Land Tool Network at UN-Habitat; Carmen Sánchez Miranda, head of the UN-Hábitat Office in Spain; José Luis Cortés, president of the UIA; Lluís Comerón, president of the CSCAE; Siegfried Herráez, dean of COAM; and Joan Clos, president of the Advisory Council of Affordable Housing Activation and former executive director of UN-Hábitat.

An innovative format open to the world

The UIA 2022 International Forum ‘Affordable Housing Activation Forum: Removing Barriers’ will be held in a hybrid format: face-to-face with a strong experiential commitment; and virtual, disseminated through the Forum’s website. In addition, both the inclusion under the AHA umbrella of activities already programmed, as well as new proposals for parallel events, around the world, with specific views on access to housing, which complement and add value to the content of the forum.

This summation of events will involve, at a global level in the debate, all the agents who want to be part of this movement and want to contribute to collect, share, disseminate and synthesize knowledge and good practices “Removing Barriers” from January to May 2022, with the aim of generating a collaborative model of action with a permanent character.

An event with broad institutional support

At the General Assembly of the International Union of Architects (UIA), held at the Baku Forum on June 11, 2019, the choice of Madrid for the organization of the UIA 2022 International Forum on access to housing was approved by a large majority. The candidacy culminated successfully thanks to the broad institutional support of the project, which has the endorsement of the Government of Spain, through the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council and the collaboration of UN- Habitat.

The support of the professional structure in Madrid is guaranteed through the COAM and that of the building sector by the CSCAE 2030 Observatory, which brings together all the agents involved in Spain in the design of cities.

About the International Union of Architects (UIA)

The UIA emerged as a federation of organizations in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1948. Currently, it has 104 member sections, representing 115 countries and more than 1,500,000 architects worldwide, which makes it the organization International with greater capacity for global influence in Architecture and one of the most influential in urban, design or heritage issues, linking all its activity and its commitments with international agendas and sustainability. The UIA forums are created to generate meetings around the great challenges that the profession has to face and to link architecture with other disciplines and perspectives in solving common challenges. For more information click here.