Customizing memories in a house. Our-Shelves-Houses by SUMA Arquitectura

Description of project by SUMA Arquitectura

Location
Our-Shelves-Houses is a unique building for a cooperative, located in Madrid, in an area of low-density buildings of single-family and collective housing up to 4 floors high, mostly built before the entry into force of the General Urban Development Plan of Madrid in 1997. This is a complex site in terms of its volumetric constraints, as the buildings adjacent to the site have different positions and heights.

The building introduces several strips of landscaped spaces along the perimeter of the new buildings, thus recovering the configuration of the linear city space on this plot. The building is set back to organize the access to Hernández Rubín street, generating an area for private common use. In the rear area there is another garden space for private common use, so that the building is isolated inside the plot and bordered by landscaped spaces. This proposal organizes the space in such a way that the building is integrated within the concept of the linear city that had been lost.


Our-Shelves-Houses by SUMA Arquitectura. Photograph by Jesús Granada.

The cooperative
Our-Shelves-Houses is a cooperative development for a group of young professionals wishing to acquire their first home, represented by SUMA arquitectura.

Our-Shelves-Houses is an open block collective housing project containing 8 dwellings.

It consists of 3-bedroom duplex apartments with staggered rooms and elevator service on all floors. All homes have a private outdoor space, a garden on the first floor and a large terrace in the penthouses. In addition, the project offers unique features that allow each cooperative member to customize and receive a tailor-made design for their home (we are not just talking about choosing materials). The complex has a swimming pool, garden and parking.

The building is organized in half-storey rooms, which means that each of the houses can have 3 different heights. This makes it possible for all the houses to have a garden, with 4 garden houses and 4 penthouses with terrace.

Typological Innovation
As a cooperative, each house is the repository of memory and contains fragments of the cooperative members and their own. It is an investment made to the measure of each one (according to qualities, criteria and individual decisions). The houses are treated as suits tailored to the needs of each family resulting in unique homes. The wooden structure is "sociabilized" by becoming elements of sun protection, view and privacy control, integrated furniture, etc. The staggering of the floors improves communication between rooms and visual connections with terraces and gardens, making the homes a reflection of the families' awareness of the sustainable world they inhabit.

The envolvente is the result of the structure portante and the interior configuration, it is a customizable matrix, since the depth of the horizontal planes form shelves that allow to control the privacy of the rooms and the illumination. In addition, these shelves can be used as storage spaces thanks to their recessing: large closets for clothes and personal items, desks, surfaces for beds and sofas, libraries, kitchen countertops and washbasins.


Our-Shelves-Houses by SUMA Arquitectura. Photograph by Jesús Granada.

Dense Structure
The wood structure offers hygrothermal advantages and easy assembly. It is the support of the envelope. The staggered rooms of the dwellings empty the slab planes. Thus, the exterior envelope is a reflection of the supporting structure and the interior configuration. The repetition of these elements makes it possible to generate a dense structure that functions as a prefabricated meccano with simple, dry and fast assembly and very low waste generation. The envelope and the structure are the same element that allows to control the privacy, lighting and temperature of the rooms, and serves as an integrated storage space thanks to its recessing. In this envelope, openings and strategic viewpoints are opened in the rooms of the houses. The addition of elements between the planes of the envelope make it a portante and thus give it unique characteristics.

The structure is divided into four main elements: on the one hand, the elevator's cross-laminated timber cores, the structural timber skin and cross-laminated timber slabs, and on the other, the reinforced concrete structure below ground level.

Sustainability
The building's installations are resolved by means of an aerothermal system with heat exchange that ensures hygrothermal comfort and ventilation of the dwellings with maximum efficiency. In addition, a rainwater collection system is used to use rainwater for irrigation and toilets, and solar thermal panels support the aerothermal machines, covering 72% of the demand. Finally, the houses have mechanical ventilation with heat recovery that ensure the correct ventilation of each of the rooms without the need to open the windows, which would affect the thermal comfort of the house.


Our-Shelves-Houses by SUMA Arquitectura. Photograph by Jesús Granada.

The cross-laminated timber (CLT and GLT) structure of spruce and Scots pine, and GL24h class cross laminated timber slabs on ceilings offers sustainability, hygrothermal and easy assembly advantages. CLT is a sustainable material not only because it is composed of wood, which is already a renewable resource as it does not require the burning of fossil fuels during its production. Frequently, CLT panels are assembled and cut during production, as well as manufactured with the joints and openings specific to the design. It is therefore a type of prefabricated construction.

The use of CLT as a load-bearing material allows it to be the finishing material, which reduces the labor and execution time of the project. Being prefabricated and easy to assemble, the construction of projects of this type is a dry and fast job with a very low waste generation.