Victoria Domínguez Ruiz

This study characterises the airtightness of school classrooms in several Spanish educational centres using blower-door measurements (ISO 9972:2015). Building envelope airtightness governs uncontrolled air infiltration and plays a central role in indoor air quality (IAQ): excessively permeable envelopes increase the ingress of outdoor pollutants such as PM_2.5, while highly airtight classrooms without adequate mechanical ventilation may accumulate indoor CO₂ and thermal discomfort. In Mediterranean climates, where mechanical ventilation is not systematically installed in schools, uncontrolled infiltration frequently becomes the dominant air renewal mechanism during the heating season. The measured classrooms show a mean n₅₀ of 9.08 h⁻¹ (range: 4.32–22.67 h⁻¹), placing them at an intermediate level in the international literature. High within-school variability was identified, indicating that single-classroom measurements may be insufficient to represent building-level airtightness. External façade area showed the strongest exploratory association with n₅₀ (Spearman ρ = 0.663, p = 0.037), but the small, non-random sample does not support generalising this relationship beyond the measured classrooms. The paired comparison in Centre C4 did not suggest an airtightness improvement beyond measurement uncertainty after the specific ETICS intervention, while the C5 case illustrates the potential influence of unsealed service penetrations. Overall, the observations point to windows, junctions and service penetrations as priority locations for diagnosis and targeted sealing, to be verified in larger and more diverse samples.

The pace at which cities grow and its impact on heritage management has meant that those heritage assets not linked to the traditionally monumental have been directly doomed to oblivion. The purpose of this article is to present a research methodology backed up by multidisciplinarity and stakeholders’ diversity that allows us to highlight the values and singular aspects of this rural heritage. To achieve this, a methodology was devised that is divided into three phases: mapping of human, cultural, and natural resources based on studies undertaken by the Public Sector Administration, experts, and the citizens themselves. The second phase involved the establishment of what to protect amongst all the stakeholders involved. Finally, the third stage entails integration of the information within an urban development framework. In order to work on the development of a diagnosis from three highly different approaches, Geographic Information Systems was used as information management tools, as a means of contrasting it and performing a comprehensive analysis of the same. The development of such a holistic approach provided a patrimonial map of essential resources in the municipality to be taken into account to shape sustainable development strategies inherent to a rural environment of low density. The lack of this comprehensive approach when managing rural heritage in which citizens take on centre stage in decision-making processes unearths two fundamental issues: firstly, the ascertainment of the existence of cultural heritage hitherto abandoned, alongside the need to endow urban governance powers to the public administration, as it falls to them to spearhead this shift in public management.

Modern science is going through a period of important reflection on the role of different agents and multiple disciplines in the management and safeguarding of architectural heritage. This new focus generates a greater amount and diversity of information, so the implementation of a unifying tool in the framework of digital information models would mean a better knowledge of cultural heritage as well as aiding its safeguarding and protection. In addition, it must be taken into account that, for the correct management of information in its broadest dimension, this tool must make it possible to relate alphanumeric data about an item of heritage to its spatial location. In this sense, this article proposes a Heritage Information System (HIS)—understood as a digital knowledge tool—that consists of a relational database and a map manager with Geographic Information System (GIS) technology (a geodatabase). The methodology suggested here sets out the steps that make up the HIS, so that the system can be applied to other geographical elements or realities. For this reason, a study was made of “La Cultura del Agua” in Valverde de Burguillos (Spain), a heritage ensemble that consists of rural architecture and dispersed preindustrial elements, which are currently at risk. The HIS seeks to develop a more complete identification of these elements (individually and as a system) and a justified argument for their being given value and great visibility. This new approach encourages sustainable development in terms of efficiency and effectiveness for the analysis, diagnosis, and reactivation of cultural heritage, always placing importance on the balance of social participation with the territory in which the system is applied, and with global society.

La iniciativa Activa Valverde es un proyecto pionero y singular en la lucha contra la despoblación en Extremadura, tanto porque nace de la sociedad civil misma, como porque crece hombro con hombro con la Universidad. Ambos hechos explican la dinámica del proceso y son los que más novedosos y esperanzadores nos parecen desde la perspectiva de su posible replicabilidad y de su condición de ejemplo para otras localidades y universidades de España. Valverde de Burguillos es un pueblo de Badajoz que contaba en los años sesenta del pasado siglo XX con 913 habitantes, muy lejos de los actuales 280. Como tantos otros, afrontó a partir de los años sesenta los fenómenos hermanados de la crisis de la agricultura tradicional, la modernización del campo, la emigración rural y consiguiente crisis social y cultural. Con la emigración se desató una dinámica de fenómenos que devinieron en quiebra del sistema agrario y, así, las dehesas, tierras calmas, olivares y huertas vieron cómo llegaba el fin de su modelo tradicional. La reducción de la mano de obra en el campo tuvo una consecuencia añadida: la masculinización de la agricultura y el envejecimiento de la población activa agraria.

El artículo reseña la propuesta de un equipo de investigadores de la Universidad de Sevilla para abordar el problema de la despoblación, rescatando y poniendo en valor los recursos endógenos de los municipios con baja densidad de población, con el apoyo del conocimiento científico, para que los agentes implicados en el desarrollo local trabajen conectados y cooperen mediante una red colaborativa.