The road along the western Asturian coast leads us to the plot. It is wrapped in a dense mass of trees that barely allows a glimpse of what lies within. A void carved out of this green mantle becomes an entrance that transports us to another universe: a plant-filled courtyard, evoking the sensation felt by Edward Bloom when he discovered the idyllic town of Spectre.
The visitor enters a poetic world, a slower and quieter rhythm. The house reveals itself among the trees, resting lightly on land that gently slopes to the south, seeking sun and views of the forest.
The house and its position arise from a complex starting point. Strict setback requirements from roads and property boundaries defined a very limited buildable area. Rather than a constraint, this became the catalyst for the design.
The intervention proposes a continuous journey linking interior and exterior. It begins in a small entrance hall, a threshold to the heart of the home where architecture becomes permeable. A double transparency along the north–south axis expands the shared living and kitchen space, turning the interior into a transition between the garden and the green mountains. Instead of interrupting the landscape, the house frames it and allows it to be contemplated through the building itself.
The route ends in the most private space, the main bedroom, oriented toward the vast horizon. From this elevated position, the house rises above its surroundings and projects the gaze toward its final destination: the Cantabrian Sea.
Architecture becomes a choreography of sensations, connecting near and distant landscapes. The form advances toward the sea like a fish that contracts and relaxes its body to move forward. As in a film by Tim Burton, the project suggests that true life is not found in a static paradise, but in the journey through the real world and its complexities. The house refuses to remain a big fish in a tank and chooses instead to leap into the sea.
Materialising this vision required breaking away from conventional systems. Inspired by origami, a 1.5-millimetre-thick load-bearing envelope was developed using an S275JR steel exoskeleton composed of around 150 unique folded components. Each fold and perforation was optimised through finite-element analysis and modelled in a BIM environment. Laser cutting and folding enabled a fast, dry and precise bolted assembly, making possible the double-curved surfaces that define the house.
The structure is clad in slate, rooted in the vernacular architecture of western Asturias. Each slab becomes a scale of the building, forming a ventilated façade and supporting a broader commitment to energy efficiency, certified under the PHI Low Energy Building Standard of the Passive House Institute.
In the end, the story returns to its origin. The house, like the protagonist of the film that gives it its name, embraces the complexity of the real world to reach a broader horizon.
