VIBRArch | Wellbeing for all

Nowadays, a growing number of countries around the world are encouraging research and development primarily through their universities. As a consequence, the number of researchers is increasing day by day, as is their capacity to produce new knowledge and new advances. Businesses and companies are no strangers to this boom and are investing heavily in research for a wide variety of purposes as well. This rising context makes it possible to be optimistic and ambitious about the capacity of human beings to improve their living conditions and ensure a feasible future for their life on the planet.
But it would not be absolutely unacceptable for these achievements to be within the reach of only a few. Every new purpose, strategy, development, and outcome must be designed in a way that leaves no one behind. Progress must be common, and the new wellbeing must be for all. Thus, this research and development flourishing that we are now witnessing, must maintain, with the same intensity as its scientific, technological, and artistic aspects, the ethical and humanistic values that guarantee an increasingly better and more dignified life and equal opportunities for all people.
Architecture has traditionally been a discipline in which common benefit is often a starting condition. The society for which architects have worked at every stage of human history has been the recipient of the fruits of their labor. Training in schools of architecture and in those of other related disciplines has always required a great deal of knowledge of society and has promoted the development of the aforementioned ethical and humanistic values. For this reason, and within the scientific community, architectural researchers must be leaders in promoting wellbeing for all.
Current lines of research include topics historically considered as graphic expression, urbanism, territorial planning and landscape, design of housing and any other type of building and interior or public space, restoration, materials and construction techniques, structural solutions, or financial management from an applied point of view. As well as history, theory, or criticism from a more theoretical point of view. All these subjects have been joined, more or less recently, by other fields of research that link architecture with other disciplines and connect it with the priorities of the moment or with the new sensibilities that society is developing, such as sustainability, conservation and renovation, or participation, diversity and inclusiveness, as well as a growing number of other ethical aspects whose common denominator could be the right to a full and dignified life for any human being.
The fourth edition of the Valencia International Biennial of Architectural Research aims to be the meeting point for all those keynote speakers and researchers in architecture and other related disciplines who have initiatives, ongoing research or results that emphasize the importance of maximizing the number of potential beneficiaries of the knowledge produced or the progress achieved. Likewise, it intends to be a showcase for citizenry to understand the importance of research in architecture and to observe how every goal achieved always longs to be wellbeing for all.

Ivan Cabrera i Fausto
Conference Chair | Dean of the Higher Technical School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Valencia