The school is reached after crossing a small wooden bridge through a forest of pine trees. This transition is not only physical but symbolic: children leave the city behind and enter a space that invites serenity, openness and freedom. The architecture is designed to accompany the children in their daily lives, celebrating the nature that surrounds them.

The building meanders in the shape of an “S,” generating courtyards, plazas and terraces that extend the classroom outdoors. There are no visual hierarchies or dominant elements: no platforms, blackboards, or teacher’s desks. Nature is the only center. Each classroom opens to the landscape and extends toward a small amphitheatre, a fountain and a deciduous tree that marks the passage of seasons throughout the school year.

The design carefully reflects Montessori pedagogy: spaces are conceived at the children’s scale, with low arches framing entrances, secret corners inaccessible to adults, and flexible zones where students choose their place according to their curiosity. Inside, five learning areas—sensorial, practical life, language, mathematics and cultural studies—are laid out freely, without rigid partitions. At the heart of each classroom, a triple-height solar chimney brings in natural light and ventilation, establishing a visual and climatic connection throughout the building.

The materials, chosen with care and coherence, reinforce the silent lesson the school imparts: load-bearing walls of fired clay brick, timber structures and enclosures, and green roofs that insulate thermally and acoustically. There are no linings or finishes—everything is left exposed, including the visible installation systems, inviting children to understand how the building works. At Imagine, architecture does not merely contain learning—it becomes learning itself.

The outdoor spaces continue this pedagogical intent. There is no ornamental grass or artificial football fields: the terrain retains its natural unevenness, textures and vitality. There are ramps, climbing walls, shelters and slides shaped by the topography. And when it rains, the ravine comes to life again, becoming a dynamic stage for lessons in living geography.

Imagine Montessori School is, in essence, a built manifesto for another way of inhabiting, of teaching, of growing. A place where architecture and pedagogy intertwine to let children—like trees, like light, like water—find their path, naturally.

Project: Imagine Montessori School.
Architecture: Gradolí & Sanz Arquitectes.
Authors: Arturo Sanz, 
Carmel Gradolí
 y Fran López. 
Completion: 2024.
Built area: 2.922 m²
Site area: 4.556 m² 
Photography: Mariela Apollonio.
Collaborators and suppliers
Architects: J. Luis Vilar, María Navarro, Daniel López

Technical architect: Francisco Vallet
.
Traditional structure consultant: Adolfo Alonso
.
Timber structure: Albura Wood & Concept.
Metalwork: Martí Cots.

Brick vaults: Cercaa.
Exterior wood joinery: Morata.
Interior carpentry: DisbeaA showlutions.

Installations Phase I. asesor Breeam. Phase I: Zero Consulting.
Installations Phase III: GME.

Lighting: Cosmo Stil.
Green certification consultant: GBCE.

Acoustic consultant: Silens Acústica.
Landscape design Phase I: GM Paisajistas.

Visualizations: Drawfield.
Builder: Grupo Valseco.

Gradolí & Sanz Arquitectes

From their studio in Valencia, architects Carmel Gradolí Martínez and Arturo Sanz Martínez craft architecture rooted in context, history and life itself. Built on a professional ethic that values attentive observation of place and active listening to future users, Gradolí & Sanz have established themselves as a benchmark in honest, rigorous and locally grounded architecture.

Their work moves seamlessly between domestic and public spaces, rural and urban contexts, with a sensitivity that turns each project into a precise response to a specific situation. From single-family homes to cultural facilities, heritage restorations or rural schools, their architectural language blends expressive austerity with spatial richness born from the play of light, noble materials and vernacular construction techniques.

Far from grand gestures, their architecture resides in the essential: in human scale, in efficiency and comfort, in respect for what already exists, and in the quiet ambition to improve people’s daily lives. A practice that understands architecture as a common good and a tool for thoughtful, lasting transformation.

Carmel Gradolí Martínez (Valencia, 1961) holds a degree in architecture from the Technical School of Architecture in Valencia and a Master’s in “Intervention Techniques in Architectural Heritage” from the UPV. Between 1992 and 1994, he served as Heritage Inspector for the Department of Culture, Education and Science. He has developed an active teaching and research career. His work is deeply committed to the social and cultural role of architecture, with special attention to sustainability, rehabilitation and Mediterranean vernacular architecture.

Arturo Sanz Martínez (Teruel, 1963) is a graduate of the Technical School of Architecture in Valencia, with a specialization in Urbanism. He combines professional practice with teaching and public engagement. His career is marked by a deeply human approach to architectural design, with particular sensitivity to educational architecture, communal spaces and the balance between tradition and contemporaneity. He is actively involved in community initiatives in the Benimaclet neighborhood (Valencia), where he has promoted urban gardens and coordinated the participatory strategy “Benimaclet es Futur.”

Source: Gradolí & Sanz Arquitectes y Linka.

The project was the winner of a 2020 competition launched by the Barcelona City Council in the context of the pandemic, a moment when housing revealed itself—more than ever before—as a vital space in every sense: physical, emotional, and ecological. The competition brief called for fast, efficient construction with minimal environmental impact, capable of responding to the housing emergency without sacrificing climate commitments. Urbanitree responded with a bold proposal: to construct the tallest public housing building in Catalonia using only industrialized timber.

Timber architecture for a post-carbon city

Rising eight storeys above ground, the building is made entirely of cross-laminated timber (CLT), a system that not only accelerates construction but drastically reduces carbon emissions. As a renewable material that stores atmospheric carbon, the final CO₂ balance is negative. Choosing wood is not just a technical decision—it’s a political one: to build with timber is to commit to a decarbonized, regenerative form of architecture with a lower environmental impact.

Each of the 60-square-metre apartments is designed for maximum comfort under high energy efficiency standards. Every room opens to the exterior, ensuring natural light, cross ventilation and a continuous relationship with the surrounding environment.

But the defining feature of the project lies in the generous terraces attached to each dwelling—hence the name. The architects organized the building around a central courtyard so that all apartments would have façades facing outwards, each with a large terrace. With a depth of 1.8 meters, these terraces are not an afterthought but a genuine extension of domestic life. They can be used for reading, growing plants, sharing meals or simply breathing—something whose value became evident during the pandemic. Urbanitree reclaims the terrace as a place of health, community and shared living.

A building as urban ecosystem

Beyond individual homes, Terrazas para la vida proposes a vision of the building as an urban ecosystem. On the rooftop, a solar greenhouse over eight meters tall functions as a prototype for vertical farming. Equipped with hydroponic growing trays, a centralized irrigation system and LED lighting, this space allows food to be produced on site. The required energy is supplied by a semi-transparent photovoltaic skin enveloping the structure, powering both the greenhouse and the shared areas of the building.

This is not only about energy or food self-sufficiency—it’s about activating new dynamics of community. Residents are encouraged to cultivate, collaborate and collectively reclaim a space that would otherwise remain unused. The rooftop terrace, planted with fruit trees, reinforces the idea of a space where nature and urban life are intertwined.

At ground level, the building hosts a digital fabrication hub—a FabLab open to the local community and equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC machinery. This facility transforms the building into a node of local production and knowledge, aligned with Guallart’s long-standing vision of the self-sufficient city. In the coming months, a community centre will be added to the ground floor, envisioned as a space for intergenerational activities that will complete the building’s role as a social catalyst.

Urbanitree: building a greener, more resilient and inclusive city

Terrazas para la vida embodies the philosophy of Urbanitree in its purest form. Since its founding, the Barcelona-based studio has worked at the intersection of sustainability, technology and ecological regeneration. Its aim is not merely to design architecture, but to create prototypes for a new kind of urban life—buildings that generate more than they consume, that open themselves to the neighbourhood, that foster human connection and reconnect people with natural cycles.

In this light, the project is not an isolated case but part of a broader transformation: the construction of a city where architecture supports life, both human and non-human, and where design becomes an agent of cultural, social and ecological change.

Project: Terrazas para la vida. 40 viviendas.
Developer: IMHAB Ajuntament de Barcelona.
Architecture: Urbanitree. Vicente Guallart, Daniel Ibañez.
Location: Distrito de Sant Martí (Barcelona).
Construction company: ACSA, Grupo Sorigué.
Project management: Sequoia SLP.
Completion: 2024.
Surface area: 3.800 m².

Urbanitree: a laboratory of advanced architecture

Since its foundation, Urbanitree has established itself as a laboratory of advanced architecture committed to the ecological regeneration of cities and the development of new models of urban living. Its approach lies at the intersection of sustainability, technology and biodiversity, giving rise to projects that not only address today’s climate challenges but also propose new, more conscious, resilient and collaborative ways of inhabiting space.

Based in Barcelona, Urbanitree works across multiple scales—from collective housing to urban design—and is part of international networks of research and innovation. Its practice integrates knowledge from architecture, engineering, biology and digital fabrication, reflecting a holistic perspective on the built environment.

The studio was founded by architects Vicente Guallart and Daniel Ibáñez, two key voices in the contemporary discourse on urban ecology and emerging technologies in architecture.

Vicente Guallart

Vicente Guallart is an architect, urban planner and one of the early advocates of urban self-sufficiency as a strategy for the future of cities. He served as Chief Architect of the City of Barcelona from 2011 to 2015. He is co-founder of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Fab Lab Barcelona, through which he developed projects such as the Media House Project (2001) in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab and the Fab Lab House (2010). He currently directs the Master’s in Advanced Ecological Buildings at Valldaura Labs, where he explores timber construction.

His vision has informed urban policies around the world. He has led projects across Europe, Asia and Latin America, always combining nature and technology in a single architectural narrative. His books The Self-Sufficient City and Geologics articulate an approach to architecture as a living system. Guallart has exhibited four times at the Venice Biennale and was selected for the MoMA’s Spanish architecture exhibition in New York.

Daniel Ibáñez

Daniel Ibáñez, architect and PhD from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, has focused his research on natural materials—particularly timber—and circular models of urban production. He is currently director of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. His academic work centres on the use of biogenic, renewable materials in architecture, while his professional practice is dedicated to designing and developing ecological buildings.

He also serves as senior consultant to the World Bank, advising governments and international institutions on industrialized timber construction and sustainable urban development.

As director of the Mass Timber Design Master’s program at IAAC and of the Global Mass Timber platform, Ibáñez bridges architectural design with industrial ecology and regenerative urbanism. His work blends academic rigour with design expertise, exploring how architecture can serve as an interface between natural systems and urban life.

Together, Guallart and Ibáñez lead Urbanitree as an open and collaborative structure, capable of envisioning urban futures where architecture becomes a framework for life.

Source: Urbanitree.

The interaction between open and closed elements fosters a sense of community while allowing for moments of solitude and introspection. The openings not only frame the surrounding landscape, but also invite natural light to filter through, enhancing the ambience and creating a dynamic interaction between the indoor and outdoor environments.

The materials used in the construction blend seamlessly with the natural surroundings, emphasising sustainability and harmony with the environment. Earth, lime and stones come together to form the structure, reflecting a commitment to traditional building techniques and local resources.

The grouping creates a hierarchical space to be occupied, conceived as a versatile boundary where different situations can occur. It is an enclosure protected from the sun, the wind and the immensity of the countryside, enclosing you in a semi-enclosed space while opening up openings that offer views.

Oasis

The term oasis is defined as “respite, rest, refuge from the hardships or adversities of life“. This architectural oasis concept: vegetation, water, isolated from the surrounding landscape and also as a vital refuge.

The void creates a space that serves as a secondary living room. It is more public, but still provides the necessary intimacy. This spatial dichotomy evokes the memory of a house without a roof, eroded by the passage of time.

Ballasting, a local technique used in Mallorca in the 1950s.

The construction system is based on ballast walls (earth mixed with aggregates of various sizes, stone and lime). For the interior enclosure walls, the ballast is 25 cm thick, with 10 cm of wood fibre insulation and a 20 cm thick local ceramic brick wall. Waterproofing is achieved with an open diffusion membrane placed between the two walls to ensure the breathability of the enclosures.

The open diffusion membrane is crucial for managing moisture, allowing adequate ventilation and preventing moisture build-up that can lead to structural damage. This approach to waterproofing promotes the overall longevity of the building while maintaining a healthy indoor environment.

By combining traditional materials with modern techniques, the ballasted wall system creates a harmonious balance between functionality and sustainability, reflecting a deep respect for environmental and architectural principles.

Ballast walls

Ballast walls represent a sustainable and innovative approach to construction, harnessing natural materials to create efficient and durable structures.

The use of soil mixed with aggregates and lime not only provides structural stability, but also contributes to thermal mass, helping to regulate interior temperatures.

The inclusion of wood fibre insulation increases the energy efficiency of the building by reducing heat loss and improving comfort. Local ceramic bricks add an additional layer of thermal protection and durability.

The thatched roof

The roof is insulated using 35x40x80 cm thatched blocks, which are placed between glulam beams. This configuration creates a dense, well-integrated insulating layer that provides thermal performance superior to 30 cm of extruded polystyrene.

Straw blocks not only offer excellent insulating properties, but also contribute to sustainable building practices by using natural and renewable materials. The combination of thatch and glulam improves the overall energy efficiency of the building, helping to effectively regulate indoor temperatures.

Straw blocks, wedged between the rafters, form a solid thermal barrier that minimises heat loss and improves indoor comfort. In addition, this natural insulating material promotes moisture regulation and breathability, crucial for maintaining a healthy indoor climate.

The use of straw is in line with green building principles, as it reduces reliance on synthetic materials and reduces the environmental impact of the building. This method also contributes to the durability of the building, as straw is strong and effective in creating a comfortable environment, while promoting sustainable building practices.

Interior earth plastering

Inside, the partition walls are clad with a mixture of earth and lime, which creates a favourable hygrothermal environment for our humid climate. This traditional technique not only improves the thermal performance of the building, but also contributes to improving indoor air quality by regulating humidity levels.

This approach not only improves energy efficiency, but also reduces the risk of mould and condensation, making it particularly suitable for regions with high humidity. In addition, the use of local materials aligns with sustainable building practices, offering both environmental and economic benefits.

The mixture of earth and lime acts as a natural buffer, absorbing and releasing moisture to maintain a comfortable and stable indoor climate.

Project: Ca Na Pau. Oasis de tierra.
Architecture: Munarq. Rafel Munar y Pau Munar.
Location: Binissalem (Mallorca).
Finished: 2024.
Photography: Ricard Lopez.
Text: Munarq.

Munarq

Munarq is an architectural studio based in Mallorca founded by Rafel Munar and Pau Munar focused on the integration of architecture in the Mediterranean landscape. Always trying to bring new ideas to the island’s building tradition.

To be successful we try to solve complex problems in the most direct and efficient way. We are deeply focused on respecting our land and therefore we always think about sustainable construction that affects our landscape as little as possible, using natural materials and mutations that are favourable to our environment. Dealing with a wide range of clients and all their requirements and possibilities, we look for the simplest solutions to be fundamentally efficient and pragmatic.