A couple bought one of the very few urban plots over the seathat is still unbuilt in the Cantabric Sea coast. After scouting every village from Plencia to San Vicente de la Barquera for nearly a year, they found the place they where looking for in a residential estate from the 70’s near to Loredo, a suburban Santander vacation village. The plot is highly sloped over a30 meters high cliff where waves brake. Northern sea wind is too brave and violent to let non protected trees grow. Whenever someone from the dry interior land arrives, wanders why houses face south and never to the sea. South orientation and sun are most appreciated by local people who come around to buy a holiday house, while the sea is just obvious. “We, on the contrary, come from far away looking for the sea, the wind, the waves, and therefore decided to getplot number 21, although going against the tide”.

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Plot size 90 x 50, 4500 m2 and 8% building rate, that is, 360 square meters. Basement not included. Maximum height 3 meters eaves, 6 meters total. Distanceto the lateral edges 10 meters, and 12 to the back street axis. 11 meters drop. 30minutes walk to Langre Beach and 10 to the eastern end of Puntal Beach, whose opposite end closes Santander Bay. Cantábrico horizon from west, Cabo Mayor, to east, Cabo de Ajo.

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A new topography is defined in order to protect a back south garden from the persistent sea wind. The building is enclosed in a 22x22 square metres based prism, whose height is three and a half meters. The most visible façade of the house is the green vegetal roof. The main program is developed inthe first floor, over a ground floor that consists of garage, facilities, storage, porch and south garden. None of the pieces over the roof is higherthan the horizon line seen from the street.

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The will of disturbing as less as possible in the visual topography of the landscape led us to glue the house to the ground and find out façade and roof solutions that had a direct relationship with the surroundings. The idea of a “grabbed building” guides the decisions about volume, position,occupation, exterior outfit and façade claddings.

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The property requires a holiday house program (although everybody knows it will become their permanent home), conditioned by its useintensity variation in terms of number of inhabitants, or season. This program complexity (couple, family, friends; summer, winter; weekend, long terms) is solved attending to values of low energy, spatial simplicity and use flexibility. The house’s program arranged in perpendicular stripes to the longitudinal plot  axis is the following(in proximity to the sea): living/dining/library + office; Santander room +bathroom + toilet/storage + kitchen + double bathroom + multiview room; vertical patio + north hall +  accesspatio; introvert room + indiscreet bathroom + brief space + flexible space +open bathroom + tub room; void patio + south hall + fern patio; multiple room +bathroom + south raised living + bathroom + no vacancies room. OS HOUSE is ready.

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