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

"[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.

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."

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."

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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