Architects:DATAAE,Javier Gavín,Juan Moreno,Siddartha Rodrigo

Area:1112m²

Year:2025

Photographs:Clara Torres González

Category:Social Housing

Lead Team:Juan Moreno Romero, Siddartha Rodrigo Clúa, Javier Gavín Balda, Claudi Aguiló Aran, Albert Domingo Ollé, Silvia Canals

Engineering & Consulting > Quantity Surveying:Maria Antonia Ribas

Engineering & Consulting > Structural:MVA Despatx d’arquitectura i estructures

Engineering & Consulting > Services:L3J

Engineering & Consulting > Environmental Sustainability:Societat Orgànica

Engineering & Consulting > Acoustic:Àurea acústica

City:Santa Margalida

Country:Spain

Text description provided by the architects. Located in Santa Margalida, a small town in the north of Mallorca, the project proposes a building with 10 social housing units and 10 multipurpose spaces, constructed using local and/or low environmental impact materials. The exterior structure is built with marés sandstone from local quarries, resulting in a robust and durable construction that ensures the building's integration into its surroundings. The interior is resolved through a horizontal structure of prefabricated timber panels and a vertical structure of load-bearing walls made of locally sourced brick, facilitating the project's economic feasibility.

The project's technological research focuses on optimizing the thickness of these structural elements and minimizing the amount of material used on site. In this regard, the rotation of floor slabs in alternating bays allows loads to be distributed to the greatest extent and ensures the interlocking of the whole, enabling the use of more slender load-bearing walls and reducing construction costs. Likewise, the timber slabs are designed as a prefabricated panel system, facilitating assembly and speeding up on-site execution. The H-section of the panels ensures that, in the event of fire, the horizontal board protects the upper part of the joists, reducing the amount of timber used in the slabs without the need for additives or fire-retardant varnishes—relying solely on the geometry of its components.

On the upper floors, the building's limited depth is used to create dual-aspect dwellings with cross ventilation, reinforcing the idea of "living between outdoors." The staggered arrangement of rooms structures the internal organization of the homes. The typologies are articulated around a central core, generating circular routes that allow flexible use and long sightlines that expand the perception of interior space. The movement of the sun accompanies the use of the spaces throughout the day.

The project seeks to meet comfort demands through the architectural form itself, achieving—through the use of passive systems (cross ventilation, solar galleries, thermal mass, etc.)—a reduction of non-renewable primary energy consumption to zero.

In this sense, southeast orientation is prioritized in all dwellings, using façade galleries as energy-capturing spaces during colder months. In warmer months, a system of roller blinds shades these spaces, blocking solar radiation. The floor plan organization results in shallow, dual-aspect dwellings, ensuring cross ventilation and taking advantage of prevailing air currents.

Project gallery