Dendro-hábitat

Polytechnic University of Madrid

Project idea

This is a project where wood is the protagonist, building a neighborhood made of this material near a sustainable forest and two volumes that are developed as an architectural project:
-The residential building: made up of habitable capsules that speculate through nomadic housing, a home that has the best of the city (urban density) and the best of living surrounded by nature (inside the forest) . This building is made up of a fixed part and a mobile part.
-The wood factory: treats the wood obtained through the sustainable forest to manufacture glued laminated wood and CLT, where the housing capsules are also assembled. This building aims to be a prominent piece in the neighborhood, which functions as a dynamic, educational, social and productive meeting point.
These two pieces are arranged in the orthogonal urban plot closely, highlighting the wood factory for its volume and for being adjacent to the forest, so that its movable spaces exit towards it through rails. Both volumes are also located in front of a rolling track both for the optimal extraction of these residential capsules, as well as for the transport of all the material derived from the sustainable forest.
They are buildings built with a wooden structure, blending into the project, where vegetation takes center stage, serving various functions: aesthetics, temperature and radiation control, ... creating a unique ecosystem, between urban density and nature.
Also in the roof plant (below) we can see these rails, where the wagons with the wood manufacturing processes (sawmill, debarker and drying) are taken out into the forest.

Project description

The place of the project is the Lagunas de Ambroz in Madrid, a 3.3 km2 piece of land where a sustainable forest is planted that occupies most of the land. In the southwest area of the project, the wooden neighborhood that sews the urban fabric of the city is proposed. The project has a local scope, providing the city with a new neighborhood and a forest park for the enjoyment of the citizens of the neighboring neighborhoods, but it also has a national scope, because the wood treated in the factory is designed to be distributed throughout Spain promoting a sustainable material for future constructions.

Technical information

Wood factory: the building consists of two main parts in terms of spaces. Those condensed servers on the north façade that have a height of 3m and that are a total of 3 floors above ground and the main ones below the wooden envelope, being 6m between floor and ceiling and being only 2 floors above ground. For the structural configuration it has been proposed:
1) Main wooden portico: made up of a main beam of section 0.8x2 m and 51m long that saves a span of 41m. In addition to a double pillar on each side of the porch separated by 3m from each other and the 41m of span between pairs, with a height of 15.5m. Being both the beam and the pillars of GL-24h glued laminated wood.
2) CLT panels: made of C-24 sawn wood that function as floors to support all those server spaces mentioned, the main second-floor spaces and the flowerpots that create a plant facade on the south and west facade of the project. With average dimensions of 3x6m in plan and a thickness of 28cm (CLT 280).
3) Metal trusses: tubular section (8cm in diameter) made of S-275 steel with a 50cm section that rest on the ground and hang from the MLE main beam of the porches; that will hold the methacrylate enclosure of the main spaces.
4) IPE200 structure: made of S-275 steel that supports the slab of a walkway that crosses the entire project and hangs from the main wooden frames thanks to anchored stainless steel cables.
5) Foundation: all the ground at grade level is made up of a reinforced concrete slab. The main wooden pillars rest on double footings tied together and the trusses that support the entire interior envelope on small individual footings.

Residential building: the module that configures the 3x3m space is the same that distributes the MLE columns and beams along the entire modular and regular structural grid. Obtaining the following structural elements:
1) Pillars of glued laminated wood: section 30x30cm with a height of 3m between plants and reaching a maximum height. 18m, allowing the continuity of the pillar thanks to a metallic piece detailed later.
2) MLE beams: with a section of 30x20cm and a length of 3m (from frame to frame).
3) CLT mix panels: which are supported by these frames that form the MLE beams and pillars, forming the horizontal floors of each floor, having a thickness of 240mm.
4) CLT panels: located in some frames that function as blind walls to bracing the structure vertically.
5) Foundations: The aforementioned pillars rest on individual isolated reinforced concrete footings, the perimeter are tied together.