Timber house in Sierra de Madrid
bio based materials to reduce embodied carbon footprint
Location: Sieteiglesias, Madrid
Status: Built
Built Area of dweling: 116 m2
Embodied CO2: 353 Kg CO2e/m2 -50yr
Operational CO2: 21,37 kg CO2e/m2/yr
Biogenic: 114 kg CO2e/m2-50yr
This house, completed in 2020, marked our initial venture into a project entirely crafted from timber, including the structural elements. Our prior experience in interior design for retail brands familiarized us with the use of wood in millwork and finishes. However, this particular project showcased a broader spectrum of possibilities that timber offers.
Originally planned using Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), the construction ultimately proceeded with a light frame structure due to considerations of lead time and cost.
This house, designed for a couple, is situated on the outskirts of a small urban center in the Jóbalo valley, at the foothills of the Sierra del Rincón, north of Madrid.
The plot is elongated and stretches from the access road in the north to the creek in the south, which opens up to a granite-filled landscape that culminates at the Sierra del Espaldar and Pico de la Miel.
The house is positioned at the center of the plot, slightly rotated to eliminate ‘corridor’ spaces on its sides while simultaneously forming a visual barrier to ensure privacy for the pool and garden areas.
Gabions, filled with the local granite, level the plot and create a foundation on which the house and the pool are situated.
The exterior of the house is covered with cement/wood boards cut into various-width strips, presenting a gray finish. This theme continues onto the zinc sheet roof, resulting in a cohesive and well-defined structure that aims to harmonize with the prominent granite rocks scattered across the plot and landscape.
This gray envelope transitions at the double-height porch on the southern side, which is clad in spruce, revealing the wooden essence at the heart of the house
The house is organized around the living-dining room, a double-height space with a sloping roof. The walls surrounding this area are perforated by holes of different sizes, allowing for cross views between the interior and the exterior landscape.
From this space, you can access the rest of the house: the kitchen and office on the ground floor, and the bedroom on the upper floor. Between these, a mezzanine holds the toilet and dressing room. Finally, beneath the mezzanine is the technical and storage room.
This compact arrangement offers several advantages. On one hand, it frees up plot space by reducing the surface area occupied by the house and minimizing the overall housing envelope, improving thermal behavior. Ultimately, it allows for the concentration of all wet dependencies around the facilities room.
The house is entirely constructed using a spruce light frame for both exterior and interior partitions. The floor and roof slabs are supported by various types of wooden beams: Type I pine wood beams and OSB cores, as well as LVL beams.
All structural systems are completed with OSB Class III boards, providing support for viroc ventilated facades and wooden cladding that covers the house, including the Zinc roof.
Internally, ceilings and walls are covered with plasterboard.
The interior makes use of the versatility of birch plywood boards, serving as a floor finish, material for interior doors, and details of furniture in the kitchen and windows, among others.
Approximately 80% of the materials in the house are made of wood or wood derivatives, and 90% of them are 100% recyclable.
The massive use of wood or its derivatives allows us to reduce the embodied carbon footprint.
Being a bio-based material, it has required a small amount of energy to extract and transform it into a construction material. On the other hand, it has stored biogenic CO2 during its growth due to photosynthesis processes.
Like all joints between wooden elements, they are mechanical, avoiding the use of adhesives. It will be possible to recover the wood and reuse or recycle it. We can then consider this embodied biogenic carbon to offset emissions from other building materials.
The house’s heating and water production are mainly obtained from biomass, complemented by a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery. This configuration improves the energy performance of the house.
On the other hand, the operational C02e of the biomass combustion system is considered neutral since the C02e emitted is that stored by the wood pellet during its growth.
Ground floor
First floor
