La ciudad-laboratorio: la enseñanza en la FAUC con las campañas de Mantenimiento del Patrimonio

The Historic Center of Cuenca, declared by UNESCO as Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 1999, presents a problem of widespread deterioration of its minor or environmental architecture, mainly due to lack of maintenance, which has caused irreversible losses in its assets patrimonial In this context, the World Heritage City project with the support of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Cuenca has implemented the so-called “Campaigns for the Maintenance of the built heritage”, applied in the urban (Cuenca) and rural (Susudel) context since 2011. The objective of this research is focused on evaluating the academic results, knowing the perceptions of various actors and the impacts that the five maintenance campaigns developed so far have had. For this, a survey was designed that was applied to a sample of students, teachers, researchers and neighborhood residents, whose results showed the knowledge and motivation obtained by the students, which has been a decisive factor for these experiences to continue as part of training in heritage matters. It was observed how students and teachers learned more about traditional construction materials and techniques, in processes in which the conceptual-theoretical support that supports the interventions carried out was fundamental. The community learned to know and value their heritage land buildings from an innovative perspective while improving their quality of life. Mostly the actors agreed that they would participate again in a Maintenance Campaign, which represents a commitment to continue working - and learning - of these initiatives that could be successfully adapted in other heritage sites of similar characteristics.