As part of our ongoing Erasmus+ SustainEBuild project, students and teachers from Vrij Technisch Instituut Brugge in Belgium travelled to Valencia, Spain, from 13–17 October 2025 for a week-long mobility hosted by Ciutat de l’Aprenent.
This visit formed part of Activity 3: Implementation, where students from both partner schools moved from design to action by beginning the practical renovation of the SustainEBuild project building on the Ciutat de l’Aprenent campus.

A week of hands-on renovation in Valencia

The week started with a welcome session and tour of Ciutat de l’Aprenent, including a safety briefing in the construction workshops and an introduction to the project building. Mixed Spanish–Belgian teams revisited the renovation plans developed during Activity 2 and allocated tasks for the week.

Key highlights of the mobility included:
A detailed inspection of the project building, identifying energy-related problems on site.
Practical work sessions where students helped prepare and carry out internal and external interventions in line with the design plans, guided by their teachers.
Group tasks focused on applying energy-efficient solutions in practice.
Joint workshops in Ciutat de l’Aprenent’s construction facilities, where Spanish and Belgian students shared techniques and compared how similar tasks are taught and carried out in both countries.
Reflection activities at the end of each day, where students discussed what they had learned about energy efficiency, teamwork and working on a real building.
Throughout the week, students strengthened the skills introduced in the earlier project phases: understanding regulations, reading drawings, planning interventions and using tools and materials safely. At the same time, they experienced first-hand how an abstract renovation concept becomes a concrete, step-by-step construction process.

Cross-cultural learning and real-world impact
Beyond the technical work, the mobility was also a rich cultural exchange. Belgian students experienced daily life in Valencia, visited the city and its surroundings and got to know their Spanish peers both in and outside the classroom. Working side by side on a shared building helped the groups develop trust, communication skills and a sense of shared responsibility for the final result.
Teachers from both centres used the mobility to compare curricula, teaching methods and workshop organisation, and to plan how the SustainEBuild materials and the renovated building will be integrated into future courses in construction and energy efficiency.

Looking ahead
This mobility marked a key milestone for SustainEBuild: students from both countries are now actively transforming the project building into a more energy-efficient space, putting into practice what they learned during the Knowledge Building and Intervention Design phases.
The next steps of the project will focus on checking and justification: monitoring the impact of the interventions, carrying out energy performance assessments and documenting the full process in a technical report. These outcomes will help demonstrate how vocational education can contribute in a very concrete way to the energy transition and the objectives of the European Green Deal.