{"id":65051,"date":"2026-05-20T17:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/vallribera-noray-arquitectes-disena-una-casa-en-sabadell-con-materiales-naturales-y-estrategias-bioclimaticas\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T17:51:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:51:51","slug":"vallribera-noray-arquitectes-designs-a-house-in-sabadell-with-natural-materials-and-bioclimatic-strategies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/vallribera-noray-arquitectes-designs-a-house-in-sabadell-with-natural-materials-and-bioclimatic-strategies\/","title":{"rendered":"Vallribera Noray Arquitectes designs a house in Sabadell with natural materials and bioclimatic strategies"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a unit of measurement that still lives on in the layout of certain Catalan cities: the palm. Twenty of them \u2014 just under four metres \u2014 have historically defined the width of terraced houses, the rhythm with which a street divides into thresholds, fa\u00e7ades, and domestic lives. On a plot in Sabadell inherited with that dimension and a ruined building on top, a couple commissioned Vallribera Noray Arquitectes<\/a> to build their home. The brief was also a programme: to inhabit with precision, within one’s own means, with no room for waste.<\/p>\n\n

The project began before the first stone was laid. The deconstruction of the existing dwelling was approached as a recovery operation: materials were separated and sorted for reintegration into other construction cycles, reducing waste generation from the very first act. That initial gesture establishes the ethic that guides the entire work \u2014 resource, whether material, energetic, or economic, as something to be stewarded, not a variable to be optimised at the end.<\/p>\n\n

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Street fa\u00e7ade.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Interior courtyard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Entrance from the street.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Entrance from the courtyard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The resulting house occupies 115 m\u00b2 across two floors. On the ground floor, the domestic space is condensed into a single continuous room \u2014 kitchen, living area, and dining room \u2014 that opens onto the rear courtyard. The space that in other houses of this type would belong to a car becomes instead an entrance hall with bicycle parking, a laundry area, and storage: a programmatic decision as small as it is revealing of its inhabitants’ priorities. At the centre of the house, a bathroom and a fully open staircase organise the visual and luminous connection between the two floors. On the upper floor: a bedroom, a study, and a bathroom oriented towards the stairwell. The necessary, and nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The structure as system and finish<\/h2>\n\n\n

The structure is at once system and finish. The upper floor is conceived as a cross-laminated timber (CLT) box resting on the existing party walls; the ground-floor roofs are resolved with timber beams and boarding spanning between that box and the lower fa\u00e7ades. The decision to forgo suspended ceilings and added cladding leaves the constructive logic visible: timber structures, encloses, and gives character to the interior. On the ground floor, ceramic tiles from El Bruc on the floor and brick from the Segri\u00e0 in the walls contribute thermal mass and coolness, forming a palette of materials that actively regulates the temperature and humidity of the house. The insulation is wood fibre; the exterior fa\u00e7ades, cork panels. Every material is argued, not decorative.<\/p>\n\n\n

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View of the ground floor from the entrance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bioclimatic strategies<\/h2>\n\n

The house operates without mechanical climate control systems. This decision, which might be read as a renunciation, is in fact the consequence of rigorous work on the building envelope and bioclimatic performance. In summer, cross-ventilation is reinforced by the chimney effect of the roof windows, which allow accumulated heat to be expelled during the night. Alicantine shutters and fans sustain daytime comfort. In the courtyard, a pergola and vegetation cast shade and mitigate the urban heat island effect. In winter, orientation and insulation retain every solar gain. The result, backed by an energy rating of A, speaks for itself: 21.80 kWh\/m\u00b2\u00b7year of non-renewable primary energy and a cooling demand of just 0.10 kWh\/m\u00b2\u00b7year.<\/p>\n\n

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A respected and renewed history<\/h2>\n\n

The street fa\u00e7ade is restored to recover the original appearance of the house. The building is inserted into the urban fabric with the continuity of a respected and renewed history. That exterior discretion stands in contrast to the density of decisions that sustain it: a project in which every choice \u2014 material, orientation, and programme \u2014 responds to a single idea of habitability understood as sufficiency.<\/p>\n\n

Twenty palms: the measure is not a constraint; it is the exact scale in which this couple chose to live.<\/p>\n\n

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Project<\/strong>: 130AUS.
Type<\/strong>: Obra nueva de vivienda entre medianeras.
Location<\/strong>: Sabadell, Barcelona.
Area<\/strong>: 115 m\u00b2.
Completed<\/strong>: 2024.
Author<\/strong>: Vallribera Noray Arquitectes<\/a>.
Architects<\/strong>: Aleix Gil Noray, Alba Robles Ezquerro, Lloren\u00e7 Vallribera Farriol.
Collaborators<\/strong>: Josep Maria Fosalba (Oft\u00e8cnics), energy consultant and quantity surveyor; M\u00edriam Molina (MVA), structural consultant; Pol Miret (Recursos Urbans), reuse consultant.
Photography<\/strong>: Marta Vidal<\/a>.
Non-renewable primary energy<\/strong>: 21,80 kWh\/m\u00b2\u00b7a\u00f1o
Total CO\u2082 emissions<\/strong>: 4,10 kgCO\u2082\/m\u00b2\u00b7a\u00f1o.
Heating demand<\/strong>: 7,40 kWh\/m\u00b2\u00b7a\u00f1o.
Cooling demand<\/strong>: 0,10 kWh\/m\u00b2\u00b7a\u00f1o.
Energy rating<\/strong>: A.
Source<\/strong>: Vallribera Noray Arquitectes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Aleix Gil Noray y Lloren\u00e7 Vallribera Farriol, arquitectos socios de Vallribera Noray Arquitectes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vallribera Noray Arquitectes<\/h2>\n\n\n

There are architecture practices born from a technical vocation, and others that spring from a profound desire to accompany lives. Vallribera Noray Arquitectes clearly belongs to this second lineage: to those who understand that a house is not an object but an emotional refuge; that a project is not an exercise in style, but an opportunity for people to live more happily. See full biography<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

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Vallribera Noray Arquitectes
<\/strong>Sant Francesc 16
08202 Sabadell (Barcelona)
+34 651 990 886
+34 677 233 492
info@vallriberanoray.com
vallriberanoray.com<\/a>
@vallriberanoray<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a narrow, deep plot in Sabadell (Barcelona), a couple builds their home with minimum resource consumption, maximum comfort, and spaces calibrated for the efficiency of a twenty-palm house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[624],"tags":[1505,1989,2130],"ppma_author":[249],"class_list":["post-65051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","tag-housing-in-barcelona","tag-residential-architecture-en","tag-vallribera-noray-arquitectes"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":249,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"amoratinos","display_name":"Ex\u00e1gono","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/95418ef5af1f1a520d5386cfe82ba253c88665f94a4343ec69a36d8df034ab4b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","avatar_alt":"","avatar_decorative":"","author_category":"","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65051"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65062,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65051\/revisions\/65062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65051"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=65051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}