IberoLam Timber&Technology will rehabilitate the 19th century building to install its factory and will create a poplar interpretation center and a training classroom in the Vega de Granada.

The rector, Pedro Mercado, stresses that the LIFE Wood for Future project is an example of the social function of the University to put excellence, innovation and talent at the service of society.

Granada, November 30, 2023. The rector of the University of Granada, Pedro Mercado, and the mayor of Santa Fe, Juan Cobo, signed a collaboration protocol on Wednesday that provides for the transfer of the former 19th century Señor de la Salud sugar factory to the spinoff IberoLam Timber&Technology, which emerged in 2022 from the Structural Wood Research Unit of Andalusia (UIMA) and promoted by the European project LIFE Wood for Future, led by the UGR.

The company, the seed of the first industry of wood products for sustainable and industrialized construction of southern Spain, will assume the rehabilitation of the nineteenth century building, which will install its factory laminated wooden beams of poplar and pine of Andalusia and create a poplar interpretation center and a training classroom available to the region of the Vega.

The Rector, Pedro Mercado, emphasized that this collaboration exemplifies the ultimate goal of the institution: to put the knowledge and research generated by the University at the service of society. “Behind what we are signing today there is a project, a dream, but, above all, it ensures that what we do every day in the laboratories, offices and classrooms has a social function,” he said.

For the rector, the location of a spinoff of the UGR in a historic building of the Vega means “to put into practice the big words, the objectives of sustainable development. This project offers the public an alternative model of sustainable production, respectful of the environment, and at the same time an economic opportunity to socially improve the environment. LIFE Wood for the Future is one of those projects that summarizes what all institutions and citizens must begin to do. It is about combining the agro-industrial tradition of the past with a sustainable and balanced development based on innovation, talent and knowledge. It will be a laboratory for innovation”.

The coordinator of the LIFE Wood for the Future project, the professor of the School of Building Engineering Antolino Gallego, recalled that wood construction is part of the tradition of Granada, with notable examples such as the palaces of the Alhambra or the tobacco drying sheds of the Vega, but it is also the present and the future, as there is a growing demand for these structural elements worldwide. As an example, he highlighted the building of 40 rental apartments for young people being promoted by the Housing and Rehabilitation Agency of Andalusia (AVRA) in La Azulejera, in Granada. Gallego stressed the importance of creating a local industry for these products and of using local resources that exist in abundance in Andalusia, such as poplar from Granada or laricio pine from Jaén, instead of bringing the raw material from abroad.

The professor explained that the poplar wood structural products industry for sustainable construction “will contribute to face great environmental, economic and social challenges that our province and Andalusia have, such as forest fires, pollution in the metropolitan area, rural depopulation, heritage restoration, the creation of stable and quality employment and the decarbonization and industrialization of the construction sector”.

The mayor of Santa Fe, Juan Cobo, thanked the University and the research group that leads this initiative for “giving value to a crop that was in decline, promoting its values and its positive effects on health and the environment and promoting an industry that generates wealth and enthusiasm for the whole region”. In this sense, he emphasized that it is a project of “strategic interest” for the province and he trusted that all the institutions will support it.

For its part, the delegate of Agriculture of the Junta de Andalucía in Granada, Carmen Lidia Reyes, said that with this project “history is made”, because it can reverse the gradual disappearance of many poplar groves, a traditional landscape and loved by citizens, and generate employment and wealth through excellence and innovation provided by the University of Granada. Reyes pledged the strong support of the Junta de Andalucía in the processing of the rehabilitation of the old sugar factory for the implementation of the factory and the poplar interpretation center.

 

The sugar factory

The Señor de la Salud factory, located in the heart of the Vega de Santa Fe, was built in 1890 by the architect Francisco Jiménez Arévalo, influenced by the French industrial architecture of the time. Throughout the 20th century La Cantina, as it is popularly known, had several uses, such as beet sugar factory, distillery of the Unión Alcoholera, poplar wood warehouse and, between 1948 and 1998, Army gunpowder magazine. Already in the 21st century it was acquired by the Santa Fe City Council and since then there have been several projects for its restoration and enhancement as a museum of the industrial history of the region, although none has materialized and the complex, consisting of a main building and two secondary modules, has been deteriorating. In 2014 it was inscribed in the General Catalog of Historical Heritage of Andalusia, several industrial projects and its landscape value, composed of two blocks, and in 2021 Hispania Nostra included it in its Red List of endangered heritage, as an example of industrial architecture and its landscape value.

IberoLam Timber&Technology currently has 55 partners, in its current embryonic phase has its engineering office in the business incubator of the University of Granada in Gran Via and plans its first capital increase in 2025 to start the manufacturing phase in 2026.

Seminar and exhibition

The presentation of the project was part of the seminar ‘The poplar, a source of environmental and cultural benefits’, in which professors and researchers from the University of Granada, the CSIC and the Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training addressed the relationship of poplar trees with water, ecology, health, landscape, art, history and agricultural and architectural heritage.

The seminar, held at the Instituto de América-Centro Damián Bayón in Santa Fe and attended, together with professors and researchers from the UGR, by poplar growers from the Vega de Granada, highlighted the beneficial effects of this crop on the environment, thanks to its ability to retain CO2, purify water and attract biodiversity.

The exhibition ‘Choperas de Granada’, a selection of 26 photographs submitted to the contest organized by the LIFE Wood for Future project, the Agrupación de Productores Marjal Chopo and the University of Granada, was also inaugurated. The photographic exhibition, curated by UGR professor Consuelo Vallejo, will be accompanied by the sound installation ‘Populus’, by composer and professor José López Montes. The exhibition will remain open to the public until December 10 at the Instituto de América-Centro Damián Bayón in Santa Fe.