Arces House by Ábaton
Arces House lands in Madrid, Spain as a newly built family home by Ábaton, guided by a rational modernist image and a clear environmental brief. The project centers a planted courtyard and a CLT timber structure to achieve efficiency, warmth, and adaptability. Sliding walls, cross-ventilation, and low-impact systems support daily life with restraint and precision, aligning construction craft with landscape from day one.
Even before the front door, the scent of timber meets a hush of planted greenery. Light skims the grain of CLT panels as a glazed edge thins the threshold to the courtyard beyond.
This is a new single-family house in Madrid’s Aravaca neighborhood by Ábaton, organized around a planted core and built in cross-laminated timber. The throughline is material: the exposed CLT structure shapes identity, efficiency, and daily comfort. Low-impact systems and sliding openings amplify the envelope’s performance without noise or fuss.
Express the Structure
CLT carries both load and mood, left visible to set a calm, tactile grain throughout. Joints and spans read as clean lines, giving each room a legible rhythm and a steady warmth.
Scaled volumes keep proportions humane while the timber’s thermal mass and tight envelope work in concert with orientation. By day, southern sun warms deep into the rooms; by night, the house rests quietly on its own insulation.
Open to Climate
Large sliding panes disappear into pockets, turning the living room toward a south meadow and effectively forming a generous porch. Air moves easily through the plan when interior courtyards pull cross-ventilation from multiple faces.
That airflow is the everyday engine: less reliance on mechanical cooling, more comfort from shade, leaf, and breeze. Low-impact HVAC stands by, trimmed to supplement rather than dominate the environment.
Landscape as System
The courtyard acts as a green core around which rooms pivot, supplying daylight, views, and biodiversity. Planting follows a New Perennial palette, keeping texture and color live across seasons.
This isn’t a backdrop—it’s an active layer that tempers glare, invites insects and birds, and steadies humidity. Rooms draw close to foliage so the material dialogue stays constant: wood, glass, leaf.
Living, Dining, Kitchen
A bespoke shelving piece splits the living room into two zones without sealing light or sight; it reads like sculpture and a filter in one. The dining room aligns with the courtyard, its wall-size slider vanishing to extend daily meals into the open.
The kitchen, custom-built by the studio, becomes the home’s active center—hardworking joinery hides clutter, while glass-and-steel sliders partition or merge with an informal dining nook. A secondary dining spot sits on the courtyard edge for easy gatherings.
Plan for Connection
Circulation traces a circular, open path that loops public and private wings back to the planted heart. Family members cross naturally, with short, readable routes that keep rooms talking.
Two clear zones keep functions calm: social life addresses the courtyard and meadow, while private rooms tuck into quieter edges. Edges soften, yet boundaries stay useful.
Late light rakes across the timber and the courtyard settles into shade. What remains is an even, inviting grain—structure, garden, and air working together without strain.
Photography courtesy of Ábaton
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