Tiny Madrid apartment by MYCC with rooms connected by ladders

100m3 by MYCC

The owner of this Madrid apartment moves between living and working spaces like a character in a computer game, using ladders that connect platforms inserted in a single tall, narrow space.

100m3 by MYCC

“[It] leads to an image that looks like those old computer platform games,” said Spanish architects MYCC, who created the live-work space in a 100 cubic-metre volume.

100m3 by MYCC

The architects described the volume as “an empty box waiting to be filled,” adding: “The idea of light and simple floors where it could be possible to easily jump from one to another was always in mind from the very first sketches.”

100m3 by MYCC

A mixture of ladders and staircases connect each of the platforms in the space, which is just 20 square metres in plan.

“Size, both horizontal and vertical, of every part gives a non-lineal path,” added the architects. “So, moving from one room to another is a kind of small physical effort.”

100m3 by MYCC

The entrance lobby steps up to the kitchen, then more stairs lead down to a living area on the opposite side.

A steel ladder mounted onto the side wall can be climbed to access a mezzanine study, while a sleeping area is tucked underneath.

100m3 by MYCC

A final set of stairs leads down from the living room into a bathroom located beneath the kitchen.

100m3 by MYCC

Walls, floors and ceilings are all finished in white, so the only splashes of colour come from items of furniture and framed artworks.

100m3 by MYCC

Photography is by Elena Almagro.

Here’s a project description from MYCC:


100m3 apartment

This singular urban shelter is just twenty square metres and nevertheless is one hundred cubic metres of volume. In such an enclosed space should a single person live and work. He will use his creativity and dynamism to make it his own sweet home.

A longitudinal section defines the project. The space highness has been used to accommodate several pieces, which are limited in volume but at the same time all are visually connected to each other. Even the bathroom is within sight.

100m3 by MYCC
3D diagram of apartment – click for larger image

The necessity to hold the programmed uses, each of them with specific characteristics and size, leads to an image which looks like those old computers platform games. The idea of light and simple floors where could be possible even easily jump from one to another was always in mind from the very first sketches.

Size, both horizontal and vertical, of every piece gives as a result a non lineal path. So, moving from one room to another is a kind of small physical effort.

Going up to the kitchen or getting down to the bedroom offers a stressed change and different sensation of the space, both any different unit and the apartment as a whole.

Section of 100m3 by MYCC
Section – click for larger image

The apartment, even with its small size, wants to offer generous spaces and a big quantity of different pieces of use. The pieces that make it up, does not really have a fixed clearly defined use: the kitchen is a walk-through room to get the living. There are stands rather than stairs to go down the living, which is over a cellar-storage room. Then, it is possible to get the ladder to go up to the indoor sunny terrace, a place to be used as a study or a chill out. Also the central living room connects through four steps to the bathroom. This is an oversized kind of luxury room that holds even an in-situ cosy kind of hamman bath.

Construction and finishing are made in a direct and unadorned way and all is full of bright white.

Architects: MYCC (Carmina Casajuana, Beatriz G. Casares, Marcos Gonzalez)
Location: Madrid, Spain
Area: 21m2
Volume: 100m3
Date: 2012

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rooms connected by ladders
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Book and Coffeeshop in Madrid by MYCC

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-by-MYCC

Spanish architects MYCC have designed the interior for a combined coffee and book shop in Madrid, exposing the original warehouse structure and inserting a glass floor between storeys.

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

The coffee shop is open plan with white walls, flooring more typically found in a garage and flashes of orange  and pink.

Book and Coffeshop in Madrid bu MYCC

The glass floor allows a view to the basement, which has an orange floor and is used for exhibitions and events.

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

Photographs are by Javier Ortega.

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

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Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

The following is from the architect:


Intervention in a space of this kind means a job of strata, successive throughout his long life.

The typology of this place is no different from the typical that can be found, with minor variations, in the center of Madrid. Such spaces at the street with parallel structure to the walls of the main facade and a basement below ground level that has neither natural light nor ventilation. It holds no other tasks that serve as a warehouse.

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

By the time we receive the job, we found a long succession of these actions along the building’s history and what we offer is a simplification exercise. We simply provide an attractive space that is capable of serving as a container for the uncertainties of the program. It was never clear how many square meters would occupy the area of afternoon coffee or the amount of books that would go on sale and how many different issues, or presentations and events of various kinds had to be on the top floor or below or evening cocktails weekend and revenue could sum up more surface than other different uses.

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

It follows the result. To this we add a really tight budget. We get a space that has direct reference to the New York loft and referrals to the art galleries of the early seventies. The idea was to design a site with an important legacy. It should be able to converse with the various activities that take place there and to the different types of visitors. This is a cleaning and lighting job in the very literal sense of the word. We had to expand the industrial side of this place and to file the excess of minimalism, in which it is easy to fall but we were not ready. Therefore, white paint, garage flooring, naked daylight bulbs should be complemented by an intense spatial relationship. Also a series of interrelated spaces should be developed, in order to provide a sensory experience of the visit. Should be a place of action more than for observation.

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

The place calls the attention of passers from the street by a large and light bare space that gives us the impression that there is sufficient height and surface to hold all you could be offered. We convey the idea of space left over; there will be far from being tightened … Inside, continuous drift between haphazardly arranged tables and neither empty nor totally full shelves. In the back there is a more intimate and relaxed atmosphere painted in a wine colour, while a glass floor reveals a striking orange to invite to continue the journey. We are led to a basement that will serve as exhibition gallery even if it has to live with other programs.

Book-and-Coffeshop-in-Madrid-bu-MYCC

Architects: MYCC oficina de arquitectura

Project architects: Carmina Casajuana, Beatriz Casares, Marcos González
Client: Tipos Infames
Location: Madrid, Spain
Project year: 2010
Photographs: Javier Ortega


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