© AFP (Archiv)
Presented during the National Housing Week at Luxexpo, architect Anna Puigjaner's 110 Rooms project proposes a flexible and sustainable housing model that allows residents to rent, connect, and adapt rooms according to their changing needs while reducing energy use and maintenance costs.
The 28th edition of the National Housing Week ran from 9–12 October 2025, at Luxexpo The Box in Kirchberg, alongside the Home Expo fair.
The event, which highlights innovation and sustainability in housing, served as the backdrop for the presentation of the 110 Rooms project: a flexible housing concept rethinking how people live and adapt their homes over time.
Speaking to RTL, Anna Puigjaner, an architect and researcher whose work has been exhibited at the MoMA in New York and the Venice Biennale, and who also lectures at several universities, explained the concept behind the project, developed by the architectural practice she co-founded.
The building originally consisted of apartments with five rooms each, but as family structures evolve and residents' needs change, people often look for either larger or smaller homes. The architects therefore decided to renovate the residence so that tenants could rent exactly the number of rooms they need and connect them as they wish.
Puigjaner said the innovative feature of the design is its flexibility: each room can serve multiple functions, even the kitchen, thanks to the strategic placement of technical installations in the bathroom, which are linked to all other rooms. She explained that this setup allows residents themselves to decide how their flat is organised, where the kitchen, living room or bedroom should be, and how many rooms they want to keep.
She added that this layout can easily change over time: if a tenant finds their home too large, they can give up some rooms, and if it becomes too small, they can expand. Puigjaner also emphasised the importance of shared spaces that encourage social interaction. In the Barcelona project, for example, residents share a communal garden, but she envisions similar housing schemes with shared kitchens where people can cook and eat together.
Puigjaner stressed that in social housing projects, affordability must be considered not just in terms of rent but also in maintenance. Construction should be carefully planned to ensure that energy consumption remains low, she said.
Her firm has already put these principles into practice in a project near Barcelona, where they created a natural ventilation system to keep the building cool: air is drawn in from the sea and circulated indoors through a small corridor, Puigjaner explained. This reduces the need for air conditioning which, she noted, is no longer used thanks to this system.
She added that the building is also protected from the sun by fabric panels and constructed with durable materials that minimise maintenance costs. Even the flooring was chosen with practicality in mind: its surface hides scratches and scuffs, ensuring the building remains easy and inexpensive to maintain, she concluded.
