A house made with wood from nearby forests and assembled in one week

Entering this house, designed by the studio 05 AM Arquitectura, is like opening a window onto a new dimension. This is because the architects who run this Girona-based studio, Joan Arnau and Carme Muñoz, conceived a discreet and secluded entrance to the north. However, shortly after passing through the front door, one discovers an interior that suddenly and generously expands to the south, flooded with light.

The heart of the house, located in a tranquil area of Girona, is undoubtedly a double-height central space that brings together family and communal life in a single volume: kitchen, dining room, and living area coexist without hierarchy, in an atmosphere of radical simplicity and a strong connection between their different functions. It is the meeting point for people and also for gazes. In fact, everything in the house revolves around this large space, which acts as a distributor to the other rooms but also, and above all, as a central hub. Around this central core unfolds a fluid, almost circular path, allowing the house to be understood as a sequence of transitions. The stairs, positioned on the north side, rise with calculated discretion, connecting the ground floor to the upper level, from which the dwelling is perceived as a small, ordered universe, where every line, every opening, and every shadow plays a role.

On the ground floor, on either side of the central space, there is a study that facilitates the balance between work and home life, as well as a multipurpose room where we will soon make a special stop. Upstairs, two bedrooms, also on either side, are connected by an interior balcony and an exterior terrace facing south. This interplay of walkways and openings creates cross perspectives, vertical views, and a constant connection with the central void.

This is a house that is both open and protected, with a remarkable balance between these two qualities. The south facade is almost entirely glass, but the large porch—which becomes a terrace on the upper floor—provides efficient shade that prevents the house from overheating. This is partly due to sliding panels made of wooden slats that allow for regulating the amount of sunlight entering the house: the house can be opened from side to side or the light can be filtered until it becomes a veil, a pattern of shadows within the house. In summer, with the windows open and the sliding doors closed, the porch offers a cool microclimate. In winter, however, solar radiation penetrates deeply and warms the interior, making it very comfortable.

Formal and material economy

Despite its seemingly spacious appearance, this is a modestly sized house—approximately 190 square meters spread over two floors—designed with a formal and material economy that 05 AM Arquitectura always treats as a guiding principle. Order and cleanliness are effortlessly achieved through a soft palette of woods, natural textures, and whitewashed walls that soften the wood's presence without obscuring its grain.

However, the project incorporates an unexpected element into the multipurpose room on the ground floor: a blue alcove, a kind of furniture-room that becomes the sophisticated counterpoint of the house. It serves as a sofa for true relaxation, a play area for the youngest member of the family, a reading nook, and even a room for enjoying films projected on a hidden screen. It can also function as a bedroom when guests are staying over. It is, however, a space within a space, a kind of domestic cabin that, above all, breaks the general serenity with an intimate and, why not, sensual touch.

The house offers a warm feeling. It is built entirely with cross-laminated timber panels from nearby forests, a system that allows for precise prefabrication and surprisingly fast assembly: the structural frame of this house was erected in just one week. Furthermore, while the presence of wood—structural, thermal, and sensory—fills the entire house with a welcoming character, this natural material, in addition to reducing environmental impact and the carbon footprint, provides acoustic and thermal comfort. This, combined with wood fiber insulation, careful ventilation, and well-designed sun protection, results in a house with extremely high energy efficiency, to the point of approaching self-sufficiency. Based on their experience, since the house was only recently completed, the cold weather had just begun, and they hadn't yet needed to turn on the heating.

05 AM Arquitectura, in their home region of Girona, has thus created a house that is simultaneously simple and sophisticated, discreet and striking, technological and artisanal. An architecture that opens up and also closes in, that filters the light and makes simplicity and space a form of depth.