The University of Minho is organising a lecture as part of the activities of the Green Gap Academy – Galician-Portuguese School of Green Infrastructure and Resilient Landscapes, promoted under the European Green Gap project.

The initiative aims to enhance the skills of local government officials, professionals involved in spatial planning, students and other stakeholders interested in environmental enhancement and sustainable spatial planning.
Participation in the activities is free of charge, subject to prior registration via the project’s official website, where full details of the programme are also available.

 

SPEAKERS:

Cristina Garcia Fontán, Luciano Ayala and Maria Fandiño, specialists in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning.

Through their research conducted in academic settings and project practice, they will share some of the challenges facing the implementation of green infrastructure and climate change adaptation strategies at regional and local levels.

 

Cristina Garcia Fontán
Between the Living and the Inherited: Weaving Green Infrastructure and Cultural Landscape
Cristina García Fontán holds a PhD in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Advanced Architecture from the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam. She is a lecturer at the University of A Coruña, where she teaches Architecture and Landscape. She coordinates the Person-Environment research group, which focuses on habitat, sustainability and cooperation. She participates in research projects on landscape, spatial planning and strategic planning and has international teaching experience. She has also been practising professionally since 2002, working on landscape, regeneration and building projects. Her work has been presented at international forums such as the New European Bauhaus in Brussels. In 2023, she received the COAG Prize for Ephemeral Architecture for the exhibition ‘Paisaxes Incultas: Metamorphosis of the Galician Hill’.

 

Luciano Alfaya
Cross-Border Territory: Small-Scale Strategies
Luciano Alfaya is an architect who graduated from the University of A Coruña and holds a Master’s degree in Urban Strategies from the University of Santiago de Compostela, having furthered his studies at the universities of Porto, Rotterdam and Edinburgh. He was a lecturer in Urban Planning at San Jorge University and a lecturer at the School of Design and Architecture at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, and has also been a visiting lecturer at various international universities. In 2004, he founded Estudio MMASA with Patricia Muñiz, with offices in Spain and Mexico, working on the transformation of the territory and cities

 

Maria Fandiño
Green Superstructure: Scales and Design Practices
Maria Fandiño Iglesias is an architect, having graduated from the University of A Coruña, and a landscape architect, having graduated from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. She is a lecturer at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, where she combines teaching and research. In 2019, she founded the studio MF.PAISAXE, developing a practice in which the territory and its ecosystemic values allow the landscape to recover and reclaim its place. She has received national and international awards, including the 2022 National Architecture Award for Sustainability and Health (CSCAE), the 2023 COAG Award for Public Space and Landscape, the International Federation of Landscape Architecture (IFLA) Young Landscape Architect Award, and was a finalist for the 2025 FAD ‘City and Landscape’ Award.

 

FINAL DISCUSSION moderated by:
Cidália Silva and Ivo Oliveira
The lecture forms part of the action plan of the Green Gap Academy, a cross-border school launched as part of the European Green Gap project, which will offer, in 2025 and 2026, five courses, nine workshops and eight thematic colloquia. Through this specialised training network, the aim is to support local ecological transition by empowering local actors to design and implement nature-based solutions that contribute to the restoration of biodiversity, the renaturalisation of urban and rural spaces, and the planning of more resilient landscapes.

 

The Green Gap project is being carried out by a consortium of eleven Galician and Portuguese partners: the Institute of Territorial Studies, the Municipality of Paredes de Coura, the University of A Coruña, the University of Minho, the Provincial Council of Ourense, the Municipality of Guimarães, the Landscape Laboratory – Association for the Promotion of Sustainable Development, Fundación Centro de Estudos Eurorrexionais Galicia-Norte de Portugal, Pontevedra City Council, Portuguese Environment Agency and Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests.

The Green Gap project (0029_GREEN_-GAP_1_E) is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) under the Interreg VI A Spain–Portugal (POCTEP) 2021–2027 programme.

 

Lecture organised by the University of Minho as part of the Green Gap Academy

Contact: greengap@lab2pt.uminho.pt