Fernando González, MCH2023, México

The Master of Architecture in Collective Housing, MCH, is a
postgraduate full-time international professional program of
advanced architecture design in collective housing presented
by Universidad Politécnica of Madrid (UPM) and Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology (ETH). After 15 editions, it is rated as one
of the best architecture master’s programs by architects and
experts.
The program is formulated around 7 workshops by
international renown architects, 7 specialties, which are
commonly structured with both a theoretical and a practical
approach and finally Housing Practice, a research module that
elevates the idea of housing by a scientific approach that helps
to observe, analyze and understand housing throughout many
projects around the world.
The workshops are designed by each leader, giving each their
own take on housing through an specific approach to design.
The workshops develop during a week’s work, where the
intense collaboration around the topics presented and the
teacher’s methodology become extremely stimulating and
enriching. The leaders present in this edition ere the following:
The different specialties are structured around specific topics,
which aim to enrich the design process by understanding
architecture and particularly collective housing through
different lenses, all of them relevant and necessary in our world.
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M A S T E R C O L L E C T I V E H O U S I N G 2 0 2 3
I N T R O D U C T I O N

CLIMATE AND METABOLISM
Javier García Germán
CONSTRUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY
Ignacio Fernández, Archie Campbell, David Castro
and Diego García-Setién
LEADERSHIPO AND PROCESSES
Sacha Menz
SOCIOLOGY AND POLITICS
Daniel Sorando
LOW RESOURCES AND EMERGENCY HOUSING
Elena Giral
URBAN DESIGN
José María Esquiaga and Gemma Peribañez
CITY SCIENCES
Susana Isabel and Julia Landaburu
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S P E C I A L I T I E S
HOUSING THE UNPREDICTABLE
Hrvoje Nijiric + Esperanza Campaña
WORKING + LIVING
Andrea Desplazes + Fernando Altozano
PRODUCTIVE RESIDENTIAL TOWERS
Juan Herreros + Pedro Pitarch
DOMESTIC FRAGMENTS
Elli Mosayebi + Alvaro M. Fidalgo
MERGING CITY AND NATURE
Joan Roig + Josep Battle
STRATEGY TO CREATE LONG LASTING SETTLEMENTS
Dietmar Eberle + Alberto Nicolau
SOLUTIONS FOR GOOD CONDITIONS OF LIFE
Anne Locaton + Diego García-Setién
W O R K S H O P S

1.1 HOUSING THE UNPREDICTABLE 1.2 CLIMATE AND METABOLISM 2.1 CITY SCIENCES 2.2 CAMPAMENTO NEIGHBORHOOD
COMMUNITY
3.1 CONSTRUCTION AND
TECHNOLOGY
3.2 CONTEXT AND MORPHOLOGY 4.1 SOLUTIONS FOR GOOD
CONDITIONS OF LIFE
4.2 DOMESTIC FRAGMENTS
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Page 24 Page 40 Page 52 Page 64 Page 84 Page 94 Page 106
1. THE UNKNOWN - ADAPTABILITY
The role of the architect is varied and
architecture seldom stays the same
through time, we need to design for
adaptability and transformation. This
concept is repeated in every project,
but best explained in this first two
projects, one made as a response to
emergency and the other made as a
pavilion with no specific plot, only
climatic conditions. Because of the
uncommon conditions by which the
two projects were conceived, they are
good examples of how the role of the
architect can be limited to allow for
adaptability.
2. THE CITY - SCALE
Cities are made by a series of
interconnected systems: green,
mobility and built. Every design
decision needs to take this into
account throughout different scales:
the territory, the city, the
neighborhood, the block and the plot.
Time is a mayor factor when thinking
about the city, for the years it takes to
plan and finally build the it is so long,
that the conditions for which it was
thought most probably will have
change. By understanding the
systems that make the territory and
the city, we can plan for change and
adaptability within a sustainable
frame.
3. THE BUILDING - MORPHOLOGY
Buildings, as the city, are made by a
series of systems all linked together
and all answering to specific
contextual and internal needs and
conditions. By this two projects we
will be able to understand how a
building reacts to it’s immediate
context, starting from the shape, then
the structure, the facade and the
services, each one with a different
hierarchy and a different lifetime.
Having this in mind is very important
to prioritize design decisions to
ensure the permanence and
sustainability of buildings in time.
4. THE DWELLING - DOMESTICITY
After the previous three approaches,
we are somehow left with many
rational approaches to design and
architecture, most of them addressed
by a quantitative way. All those ideas
most be always in our minds to
ensure that architecture stays
relevant and ensures sustainability,
but what happens to the actual user?
Where is the human left in all of this
and how can we innovate through
specific cultural changes and needs,
how do we create atmospheres and
spatial quality?
This last two projects show a way to
add a sensitive, qualitative approach
to architecture, being it the area and
the scale at which innovation in
housing can actually occur, for
housing serves people, and people
will always be changing.
C O N T E N T

Leaders:
Hrvoje Njiric and Esperanza Campaña
Collaborators:
Andrés Padilla and Angela Tamayo
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1.1 HOUSING THE UNPREDICTABLE

Sometimes we face the need to
design and situate a dwelling or a
group of dwellings into a context
affected by cataclysms. The recent
threats of living on planet Earth,
caused by global warming or tectonic
collisions and pandemics, demand a
quick, exact and affordable solutions
from architects. The general task is
focused on solutions for a minimum
cost housing, on affordable and
innovative proposals to address the
basic human needs after an
earthquake strikes an urban, densely
populated area.
Nezahualcoyotl earthquake response.
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Through systematic thinking, we
were asked to plan the response
process and design for rebuilding
or relocating a community after
being hit by an earthquake.
By thinking forward on a disaster
scenario, we train ourselves to plan
ahead and think of possible
outcomes, designing our cities and
buildings in a more resilient and
adaptable way.
The site chosen was the district of
Nezahualcoyotl in Mexico City, the
most densely populated, poorest
and most vulnerable to risk in the
city. The urban fabric of the district
is very particular, it was donde in
the 70’s in a rational grid like way,
with a hierarchy of mega blocks
and super blocks, all containing
services in the m middle and
working as neighborhoods within
the district.
This neighborhoods currently lack
a sense of belonging nor are they
differentiated from one another,
they also lack public space or
green areas. Houses are mostly self
built with ver low quality
standards. The crime rates are high
and even though there is a strong
sense of pride for living in this
district, it is also a very hostile place
to live.
Our project aims to see the disaster
as an opportunity to reorganize and
revitalize the area and bring public
space near every house- hold. After
analyzing the effect of density and
heights from other areas of the city,
and by running some iterations of
possible configurations for
reshaping the built area in different
ways, we arrived to a solution that
brings a good balance to the
built/public space and adapts well
to the process of rebuilding the
area after the disaster.
The building works as a clean slate
slab, where the population can
occupy the space proportional to
their previous plot, after a while the
service modules would be brought
in place and with time every person
could start adding divisions and
walls to their dwellings, making it
also flexible to change during time.
In an urban scale, the big avenues
are left for car transit and the
interior of the superblocks is left for
pedestrian use only, allowing it to
have more public space.

phase 1
phase 2
phase 3
phase 4
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Leaders:
Javier García-Germán
Collaborators:
Andrés Melo, Isabel Monsalve and
Samira Taubman
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1.2 CLIMATE AND METABOLISM

The module explores the design
opportunities which the field of
thermodynamics and ecology have
opened to architecture, and specifically
to the field of collective housing. The
module focuses on climatic questions
and on the metabolic dimension of
architecture, with the objective of
finding design strategies which bridge
the void between quantitative and
qualitative approaches. The workshop
will immerse in the quotidian
implications of sustainability, connecting
everyday life to architecture. This
question opens the experiential realm,
introducing the human body in its
physiological and psychological
dimensions to architecture.
Towards Post-Sustainability
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series of onion-like layers which
can be changed depending on the
weather.
During the summer, the fabrics are
made of aluminum mesh, allowing
the sun light to be reflected out
of the space. In the interior, a
series of linen layers serve to
reduce humidity and allow the
passing of wind to keep it fresh.
During winter time, the mesh is
then substituted by a bio-plastic
that protects the interior from the
wind. In the inside, a wool layer
helps to divide and program the
space in different ways, leaving the
smallest more intimate space
covered by an aluminum foil that
avoids the heat to leave during the
night.
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By analyzing everyday life pictures
from Barcelona, we observed how
people react to climate in a much
more intuitive way. By this, even
before analyzing thermodynamical
data, we started reaching some
conclusions regarding the specific
needs a shelter, or in this case a
dwelling, should have to address
this conditions.
Barcelona has a climate that allows
for life outdoors throughout most
of the year, with people adapting
to it by clothing alone. The idea of
textiles, which is also very strongly
ingrained in the history of
Barcelona’s development, became
the main departing point for our
design. Our project works as a
pavilion, seemingly un
programmed, with no more than a

The prototype is made with
materials that could easily
be reintegrated into nature
or reused. They weight of
the ovverall con- structions
is 10% de weight of a
traditional construction,
making it more sustainable.
In order to allow the
prototype to grow and work
as collective housing, the
scheme re- produces as a
mat building, allowing sun
light trhough a series of
patios and the flow of wind
through the ceiling.
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Leaders:
Susana Isabel and Julia Landaburu
Collaborators:
Lucas Arévalo, Gabriel Barba, Isabel
Mon- salve, Brittany Siegert,
Alejandro Yañez
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2.1 CITY SCIENCES
2. THE CITY - SCALE

City Science consists in collecting data
to further analyze it, turning into into
knowledge that can be used to
respond to specific urban challenges.
The project observes the possibilities
of a currently abandoned plot that is
partially used by railway and other city
infrastructures, as well as a few
outdated in- dustries. It’s location near
some of the main green, mobility and
urban systems’ cores make it a
relevant spot for urban renewal and
development.
Humanizing Madrid Nuevo Norte
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not as a green artery, but as a
street which ends in an intricate
mesh of freeways.This park works
as a connector and transition
towards the wilder natural park
that is El Pardo introducing nature
in the city all the way down to El
Retiro. Around it, the existing
neighborhoods grow, consolidating
the edge by respecting and
continuing the urban fabric and
density of each of them.
By densifying the areas closer to
the existing business district, we
allow the rest of the site to open
and breath towards the smaller
scale residential neighborhoods. In
every step, we focused on giving
the project a human scale, having
in mind the different conditions
and situations that make life in
Madrid different and especial. We
aim to have a development that
responds to city scale systems and
at the same time provides a human
centered city.
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The site is located at the end of
Castellana Boulevard, connecting it
with El Pardo forest, it sits between
M30 and M40 freeways, within a 5
minute drive from the airport, it has
nearby train and metro stations, and
it is besides Cuatro Torres Business
District and Chamartin Train
Station. Even so, it is completely
neglected, fragmented, irrelevant
and dehumanized.
We understand the relevance and
scale of the project in a city scale,
where any development has an
impact not only in the nearby
neighborhoods but in the whole
region. The project proposed
answers to this conditions by
carefully responding to each of
them, enhancing their importance
and integrating them together.
Our project conceives a large park
as the perfect ending to Castellana,
in contrast with the current
situation where Castellana is seen

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GREEN SYSTEM
MOBILITY SYSTEM
BUILT SYSTEM
INTEGRATING NATURE having more greenery augments
a city's ability to cleans the air and absolve water, which
makes the city more inhabitable and resilience. Also,
landscape practice, should adapt to local geographical
conditions, such as climate and topography.
WALKABILITY this is usually seen as a luxury or
something only affordable if you live in a city center.
Populations of less walkable areas tend to be less diverse
and have lower incomes, higher unemployment rates,
lower access to education, less space for recreation, etc.
The big challenge is also to transform existing
neighborhoods into human- scale cities.
LIFE + WORK MIX the purpose of pulling the two
programs closer is to take care of citizen's mental health
by building a strong connection between body, mind and
the physical environment.
SMALL SCALE designing for smallness is tightly
associated with the range of our perceptible space and
proportional to our body size. small scale cities also
encourage interaction among residents and create social
cohesion spaces-streets, buildings, neighborhoods,
associations, etc.
PERMEABLE PUBLIC SPACE designing for smallness is
tightly associated with the range of our perceptible space
and proportional to our body size.
REUSING + SAVING OLD BUILDINGS cultural and natural
heritages should be assigned more weight in locating
new towns and reviving old ones.

Leaders:
José María Ezquiaga and Gemma
Peribañez
Collaborators:
Lucas Arévalo, Gabriel Barba, Isabel
Mon- salve, Brittany Siegert,
Alejandro Yañez
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2.2 CAMPAMENTO NEIGHBORHOOD
COMMUNITY
2. THE CITY - SCALE

Urban and Public Space Design:
strategies to create flexible places and
creative environments, where people
live and work, locally produce energy,
food and clean water, in addition to
the smart mobility systems that
connect them and foster the
development of more vibrant and
entrepreneurial community, in
response to the urgent challenge of
rapid global warming.
The project proposes an innovative
approach to neighborhood living in a
fragmented area of the city of Madrid
URBAN DESIGN
Livable, equitable, resilient and healthy C
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GREEN
MOBILITY
BUILT
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existing sports facilities and parks
in Aluche neighborhood.
By doing this, four sectors are
created, divided with a cross by the
green connector and the A5
highway.
This 4 sectors have all similar
dimensions as most neighborhoods
in Madrid Centro, around 30
hectares, which gives us the
possibility to densify and distribute
the services within them with the
15min principle.
Each neighborhood has a center
that takes advantage of the existing
facilities and urban fabric, to
reinforce the sense of identity. The
centers are then connected
between them by pedestrian
streets. For car accessibility each
neighborhood has its own ring road
that allows for an say access and
more privacy.
In a site previously owned by the
military, a new development is
proposed to introduce new housing
and improve the conditions of the
surrounding neighborhoods,
currently segregated by the
military facilities. The site sits
besides a stream that connects the
new Bosque Metropolitano that will
surround the city of Madrid with
Casa de Campo park. Apart from
this, it is divided in half by the A5
highway, which represents a major
challenge for the possibility to
integrate and knit the city around.
By analyzing the topography we
detected a lower point in the site
which could work as a basin to
treat and store rain and waste
water for irrigation, it also works as
a green axis that connects both
sides of the highway through a
large park that integrates the
metropolitan Forest with the
existing sports facilities and parks
in Aluche neighborhood.

Leaders:
Fernández Solla, Archie Campbell,
David Castro and Diego García Setién
Collaborators:
Lucas Arévalo, Brittany Siegert and
Alejandro Yañez
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3.1 CONSTRUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY

The project starts by choosing a
building, whose design is closely
linked to its specific site, urban
context and climatic conditions. This
building must be moved to a new
location, with a radically different
environment. In this process, we
studied the motives for each design
intention taken on the original build-
ing and proposed a new strategy that
would change the morphology of the
building to fit the new conditions. By
understanding the key elements of
this building, we were able to
transform it by keeping its essence.
The building as an entity
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structure envelope services
connected by a process:
industralization
OULU
PARIS
Average Temperature
Paris is much warmer than Oulu, with an average yearly
temperature that is 10 degrees Celsius higher.
In Paris, the average yearly temperature is around 12°C,
with relatively mild winters and warm summers.
In Oulu, the average yearly temperature is much colder, at
around 2°C with extremely cold winters and short and
cool summers.
Average Humidity
Both cities experience relatively high levels of humidity,
with Paris being slightly more humid than Oulu due to its
oceanic climate.
For architecture to exist there must be an unbreakable connection
between design and construction, each grows and compliments the other.
The aim of the module is to understand buildings as entities based on the
interplay of three physical realms
Monthly hours of sunshine
Paris receives more sun hours per year (around 4.9 per
day) than Oulu (around 4.2 per day) due to its location in a
more southern and temperate region.
However, both cities experience relatively long days
during the summer months, with Oulu having almost 24
hours of daylight during the summer solstice.
Wind Direction Distribution
In both sites, the prevailing winds are westerly
and southwesterly, which bring humid air from
the Atlantic Ocean in Paris and from the Gulf of
Bothnia and the Baltic Sea in Oulu.
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The original building consists of a fill in
plot within a dense urban context,
where the building follows the shape of
its neighbours, opening a courtyard in
the middle that allows for sunlight
form the south to reach every dwelling.
The duality of the parti wall on one side
and the open facade on the other was
one of the main features of the
building, where the closed wall works
also as structure and container of all
the services and circulations. The open
facade has a double skin that captures
sunlight and retains the heat through
textures walls that collect the heat
during the day and transfers it to the
interior of the apartment at night.
The new location is Oulu, the fourth
northernmost city in the world with
more than 100 thousand inhabitants.
Oulu has positioned itself as a
technological research hub which
makes it relevant for a project of this
kind and which gave us the idea to
change the program into a single
owner building with mid-term rentals
for professors. The urban context is also
different to that of Paris for most
buildings are stand alone. We found a
site which similar size and orientation
as the original one, but in this case with
a wide open side facing the sea.
The main organization of the building
was kept, having circulations and ser-
vices on one side and opening towards
the other, where the double facade
was redesigned, allowing it to work as
a greenhouse during winter even
though the heat gain wasn’t enough to
transfer it to the interior. The
construction technic and materials
were completely changed to adapt to
the local industry, making a mixed CLT
+ laminated timber structure with both
prefabricated and built in place
elements.
PARIS
existing site
OULU
proposed site
PARIS
existing levels: various
total size: 2180 sq m
OULU
existing levels: 6
total size: 2180 sq m
PARIS
existing structure:
irregular, concrete
OULU
proposed structure:
regular, timber +
concrete hybrid
PARIS
existing units / floor: 6 / floor
existing units, total: 20
existing unit size: 109 sq m
OULU
proposed units: 6 / floor
propused units, total: 30
propused unit size: 60 sq m
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WATER SUPPLY AND WASTE STRATEGY
ELECTRICAL
HEATING
VENTILATION
WATER TREATMENT SYSTEM
WATER
WASTE
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Leaders:
Dietmar Eberle and Alberto Nicolau
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3.2 CONTEXT AND MORPHOLOGY

Context is everything when
designing any type of building.
Being part of a city means
understanding and respecting its
fabric. In this workshop, we looked
into the lifetime of a building and
the hierarchy of the elements that
shapes it. Society changes fast,
culture prevail but traditions and
habits are ever evolving. To ensure
sustainability, we need to design
buildings that can withstand this
changes and survive the passing of
time by adapting to new users and
uses.
Collective Housing as an urban entity.
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There are four systems that make
up a building: Volume, Structure,
Facade and Interior. Each one of
them should be designed to
withstand an specific lifetime.
Design should allow the building to
change without compromising its
integrity.
Volume > 200 years
It answers to an urban context and
is imperative for it to respect and
follow its neighbors, for no one
should be better than the other in
a democratic city and it should
always aim to improve the public
space.
Structure > 100 years
It answers to an specific use and
need, but it should be able to
adapt to other uses.
Structure allow for flexibility and
ensure security and quality.
Facade > 50 years
The facade is the face of the
building, as the volume it should
answer to its neighbors in a way
that it enhances the passer by
experience instead of shouting out
to be seen. The facade needs to be
able to improve over time by
technological innovations, making
the building more efficient in its
relation with climate.
Interior > 20 years
This particular topic refers to the
services and finishes that answer to
an specific function, they should be
designed to be changed more often,
for each generation changes the
way of living completely.
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Leaders:
Anne Lacaton and Diego García-
Setién
Collaborators:
Gabriel Barba, Isabel Monsalve,
Brittany Sie- gert
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4.1 SOLUTIONS FOR GOOD
CONDITIONS OF LIFE

The project aims to understand the
concepts and elements that generate
spatial quality in housing, stretching
the challenge by seek- ing a way to
introduce them in an existing
building, originally used as train
workshops for the SBB. The strategy
for repurposing and inhabiting this
industrial building was restrict- ed to
using only the interior, thus becoming
a much more difficult task, for the
most basic elements needed in any
house such as light and ventilation,
became immediately limited.
Qualities of inhabiting. Reuse at SBB
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Possibility to choose:
Individuals should be able define
their living conditions, not be
controlled by them.
Sensorial comfort:
Ability to control housing qualities
that affect the senses such as
microclimate, lighting, smells,
textures, etc.
Intimacy:
Ability to maintain individuality
while living in community.
Sense of place/belonging:
Feeling of acceptance, inclusion,
identity and affiliation a.
We started the design process by
choosing four main concepts that were
for us the most important aspects to
achieve quality in housing.
Architecture and lifestyle images
that reflected this ideas were
selected and translated into
specific architecture elements,
represented in section.
This fragments of sections were
carefully placed where the
existing building conditions
were best suited for this
situations to exist.

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From this understanding and in
order to start organizing the space
we studied the systems that shaped
the building: the tracks, the rhythm
of the columns, the different types
of ceilings and openings, etc.
One repeting element in our images
that quickly became our priority
was the connection to nature. We
used the holes in the tracks to
introduce nature throughout the
whole building, leaving 3.5 meter
stripes of buildable space in
between, which were divided by a
set of service - served spaces.
This allowed us to always have a
flexible space next to a
programmed one. In the larger
areas of the building we chose to
leave public space for the
community, having at a larger
scale, the same idea of service +
served spaces.

Leaders:
Elli Mosayebi and Álvaro M Fidalgo
Collaborators:
Paloma Romero, Krishna Yadav
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4.2 DOMESTIC FRAGMENTS

The discussion centers in questioning
how we conceive and design housing:
how is innovation in housing possible
and what might it mean? Can
housing be said to innovate at all?
What is the relationship between
activities, functions and space? Can
we imagine dwelling spaces whose
qualities are not derived primarily
from the satisfaction of function, but
rather from an abstract spatial
dimension? Furthermore: for whom
are we building such spaces? In light
of the atomisation of people’s
concepts of life, can we even conceive
of dwelling spaces beyond neutral
functional programmes? And finally,
what does it mean to build in the city?
What are the requirements of the
contemporary urban cultures of
living? How are they expressed in the
urban context?
Innovation in housing?
Housing for whom?
Housing and climate?
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This ideas starting giving us a hint
of certain architectural elements
that could allow us to have a
building that adapted to the
seasons and that could host our
main concepts and activities. We
found in planes’ fuselages an
opportunity to repurpose them as
large beams that could hold water
and at the same time organize and
structure the spaces.
The building works as a big basin,
that hosts in its interior many
possible activities related with
water. It becomes a large common
space which at the same time is and
to which you can only access by the
most private spaces of the
dwellings: the beds and dressing
spaces. All the other spaces
necessary to allow daily life are
located within the more public
spaces which work as circulations
facing the streets.
The exercise focuses on three
representation forms in order to
synthesize the idea and at the
same time fully explain it: Floor
Plan, Narrative Image inspired by
Persian miniatures and a
construction detail. By fragmenting
domesticity into specific concepts,
we aim to find a way to challenge
our preconceived idea of a dwelling
by focusing the design on three
words, randomly assigned:
BATHING DRESSING BED
And one climatic condition which
we chose in Delhi, India:
Long summers subdivided into dry
& humid, monsoon seasons, short &
mild winters, autumn & spring as
pleasant transition seasons.
By analyzing the implications of
this concepts and ideas within the
specific climatic, cultural and
urban context, we understood the
the relevance of monsoon season
and the role of ancient step wells
found in many parts of India.
“5 distinct seasons: summer, rainy, autumn, winter & spring”.

Fernando González, MCH2023, México

Fernando González, MCH2023, México

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