At the annual Fernando García Mercadal Architecture Awards, the Official Professional Association of Architects of Aragon granted an honourable mention in the category of refurbishment and restoration to FCC's project to refurbish the Zaragoza University Assembly Hall.

The Assembly Hall has housed Zaragoza University's School of Medicine and School of Science since the building was opened in 1893. It is the university's best-known and most thoroughly studied edifice due to its stature as a monument, its great artistic value and its showpiece location in the Plaza de Basilio Paraíso, the city's nerve centre.

The refurbishment designed and directed by architects Luis Franco and Mariano Pemán was part of the 2006-2012 University Infrastructure Plan. It had a budget of over 18 million euro, financed by authorities including the Aragon Government Science, Technology and University Department.

The nearly two-year project, which lasted from May 2006 to May 2008, involved the 13,000 square metres of the building's floor space and reclaimed an additional 9,000 square metres that had fallen into disuse. Parallel work was also done to put in new equipment for the introduction of new administrative uses.

One of the project's primary objectives was to restore all the building's main spaces (the library, assembly hall and main lecture hall). These spaces constitute the foremost example of nineteenth-century Aragonese architecture as conceived by their maker, Ricardo Magdalena.

This award joins its fellow from the last García Mercadal Awards, earned for another FCC project, the Ebro riverbank restoration (field U-12), in the category of non-residential building and equipment.