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Ses Veles Puigpunyent

Street façade of the Ses Veles building in Puigpunyent, two storeys with stone-and-lime walls, timber shutters and a tiled roof.

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Ses Veles Puigpunyent

This housing project, located in Puigpunyent, Mallorca, is promoted by the IBAVI (Balearic Housing Institute). The building is designed with an emphasis on sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmental respect. To achieve this, the project is based on a local economic model incorporating traditional crafts, construction methods, and passive strategies typical of the island.

Gable-end stone-and-lime façade of the building, with the wooded Mallorca hillside behind and an olive tree.
Stone façade detail with timber shutters, tiled roof and a balcony with a wire pergola and bougainvillea.

With two levels and a gable roof, the building is distributed into six dwellings, four on the lower ground floor and two on the upper level. The ground floor units have one bedroom and access to a private outdoor space, while the upper floor units have two bedrooms, each opening onto its own outdoor terrace. Open, flexible, and adaptable spaces are proposed that relate to each other directly, with the kitchen as the central space.

Ground-floor plan of the Ses Veles multi-family building, with the terraced homes and planted courtyards.Upper-floor plan of Ses Veles with the bedrooms and bathrooms of the homes.Roof plan of the Ses Veles building with the pitched roof and skylights.Street-façade elevation of Ses Veles, with timber shutters and the upper band of skylights.Cross-section of the Ses Veles building, showing the two floors beneath the pitched gable roof.
Entrance with open timber shutters revealing an interior with timber ceiling and ceiling fans, over a tiled step.
Corner view of the stone-and-lime façade with the garden, wire pergola and the Mallorca hillside beyond.

Using local materials and strategies, the building's materiality responds to its surroundings. The lime cyclopean facades incorporate the stones and earth from the excavation itself. The partitions are made of local ceramics, filled with residual sand from nearby quarries and finished with clay and straw. The floors and carpentry are made of FSC wood. The interior floors were made of local lime, and the exterior floors, tiles and roof tiles were also sourced locally.

Kitchen with a timber-and-OSB ceiling, green tiled splashback, oven and sink, with potted plants.Room with an OSB-and-timber-joist ceiling, a pink lime-plaster wall and a window with a blind.Room with a concrete ceiling and a skylight bringing in overhead daylight, white block walls and a timber bench.
Interior with large timber sliding doors and a joist-and-OSB ceiling, the kitchen beyond and potted plants.
Room with timber joists and OSB ceiling and a glazed door opening to the terrace, with block walls.

The building is strategically designed to maximise solar gain in winter and reduce cooling demand in summer, incorporating cross ventilation, solar shading, and high thermal inertia in floors and walls with humidity-regulating hygroscopy and breathability. The 'Trombe' type roof is a key element that captures heat in winter and is ventilated in summer, regulating the temperature and thus eliminating active systems. The private patios function as user control and filtering elements for the ventilation of the dwellings.

Stone-and-lime façade detail with timber shutters, a wire pergola with bougainvillea and a balcony with planters.
Façade detail with a bamboo blind, stone wall, timber gate and an interior stair rising from the entrance.
Cutaway axonometric of the Ses Veles building showing its structure, pitched roof and interior floors.Bioclimatic sections of Ses Veles for winter and summer, day and night, showing solar gain, the skylight and cross-ventilation.

With near-zero energy consumption (7,02 kWh/m²-year, NZEB), the project reduces CO₂ emissions by 50%, while circularity considerations mean a waste reduction of 60%. In addition, the project has been consciously designed with building systems where materials can be separated for reuse in the event of demolition. The Life Cycle Analysis demonstrates a low CO2 cost in construction (230 Kg Co2/m2), a 50% reduction compared to conventional constructions.

Construction phase with an excavator digging the foundations amid stones, the Mallorca hillside behind.Prototype lime-concrete wall with embedded local stones, testing the vernacular construction system.
Detail of the Ses Veles façade with lime render and embedded stones, framed by olive branches.

The result is a housing complex that reduces its environmental impact while strengthening the local economy and promoting territorial regeneration. By incorporating vernacular materials and techniques, Ses Veles Puigpunyent proposes an architecture in dialogue with the island's culture, combining technical innovation and environmental responsibility.

Project
Ses Veles Puigpunyent
Year
2024
Location
Mallorca
Programa
Multi-family residential
Area
399 m2
Authors
Joan Fortuny, Marc Alventosa, Xavier Morell
Team
Baltasar Nicolau (technical architect), Andrea Capella Mònaco, Joan Martí Elias, Carolina Capella Mònaco, Jordi Adell Roig i Júlia Nabona Jasans, Sandra Vargas, Marina Morey, Gori Llambias, Raquel Mirón, Rebeca Lopez, Eric Moyá (architects), Estudis d’Enginyeria de les Illes (engineering), Juan Fortuny Siquier (structure)
Photographer
José Hevia
Awards
A+A Awards 2025, winner at the Multi-Unit Sustainable Housing category