Our-Shelves-Houses is a collective housing project, created by Suma Arquitectura architects. It is located in Madrid, Spain and it’s a timber construction.

The buidling accomodates 8 houses, including two office spaces. Each house is a 3-bedroom unit and every one has a big terrace in the attics that can host multiple outdoor activities and a private outdoor area in the ground floor.

-text by the architects

OUR-SHELVES-HOUSES | SUMA ARQUITECTURA | OCTOBER 2022

Our-Shelves-Houses is a unique building for a cooperative resulting in a block with 8 duplex apartments with staggered rooms, sharing a common access area and two vertical communication cores.

All the dwellings have a private outdoor space, a garden in the case of the lower dwellings and a large terrace in the upper dwellings. In addition, the project offers unique features that allow each cooperative member to customize and make their own home.

OUR-SHELVES-HOUSES | SUMA ARQUITECTURA | OCTOBER 2022

The houses are treated as suits tailored to the needs of each family resulting in unique homes.

OUR-SHELVES-HOUSES | SUMA ARQUITECTURA | OCTOBER 2022

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. This makes the houses a reflection of the families’ awareness of the sustainable world in which they live.

OUR-SHELVES-HOUSES | SUMA ARQUITECTURA | OCTOBER 2022

The project introduces strips of landscaped spaces along the perimeter of the new buildings, thus recovering the configuration of the linear city space on this plot.

OUR-SHELVES-HOUSES | SUMA ARQUITECTURA | OCTOBER 2022

The building is set back to organize the access to Hernández Rubín street, creating an area for common private use. In the rear area there is another garden space for common private use, so that the building is isolated inside the plot and bordered by landscaped spaces.

OUR-SHELVES-HOUSES | SUMA ARQUITECTURA | OCTOBER 2022

The structural system of this five-story building is composed of CLT panels and laminated wood elements. The CLT panels form the floor slabs and also appear on the facade combined with some glulam beams forming a kind of ribs that generate the building envelope. The first floor is formed by a concrete slab reinforced by its contact with the ground. Steel struts at the corners to solve the overhangs.

OUR-SHELVES-HOUSES | SUMA ARQUITECTURA | OCTOBER 2022

Facts &Credits

Project Title  Our-Shelves-Houses
Project Type  Residential Building
Architects  Suma Architectura
Leads Architects  Elena Orte, Guillermo Sevillano
Manufacturers   Louis Poulsen
Location  Madrid, Spain
Status  Completed 2021
Area  250m2
Photography  Jesús Granada


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