Formally, the "Casa Reversa" house by Héctor Navarro + arkhitekton organizes all its living spaces on a single floor, ensuring that each room has natural cross-ventilation. To the south and west, a light facade of dark wood and glass opens to the surrounding landscape; while to the north and east, a silent, stone facade protects the privacy of the interior.
The L-shaped layout allows for different uses depending on the time of day: one wing houses the living room, dining room, and kitchen—the daytime area; while the other contains the master bedroom and two additional rooms, forming the nighttime area.
More than a replica of tradition, "Casa Reversa" is conceived as an exercise in constant balance: between interior and landscape, between openness and privacy, between opacity and transparency, between stone and light.
"Casa Reversa" by Héctor Navarro + arkhitekton. Photograph by William Mulvihill.
Project description by Héctor Navarro + arkhitekton
Located in Sierra de Ibio, Cantabria, the house stands within a small village that preserves both the urban structure and the rural coherence of its landscape, still untouched by the transformations that have altered other nearby settlements. The project arises from the desire to integrate into this context, accepting the constraints of local regulations that demand formal and material continuity with traditional architecture, while exploring from a contemporary perspective how to reinterpret that legacy without falling into literal reproduction.
The house is conceived as a single, L-shaped volume that folds upon itself to define the garden and create a sheltered domestic realm. This geometry organizes the program on one floor and allows every room to enjoy cross ventilation, opening to the south and west, while closing to the north and east. Towards the street, it presents itself as a solid stone front —a silent wall that protects the home’s intimacy— whereas from the garden its reverse is revealed: an open, light, and transparent façade that multiplies the relationship with the landscape.
A single-pitch roof unifies the composition and reinforces its reading as a continuous body, almost like a wall folding upon itself. The outer façade is built with stone extracted from the site itself —local river cobblestones, with no external supply— evoking the texture and depth of the rural walls in the region. Openings of varied sizes and proportions appear to be freely arranged, yet they align precisely with the structure and the way each space is inhabited: standing, seated, lying down, in motion…
This measured rhythm recalls vernacular architecture, where functional transformations over time produced façades that told their own stories. In contrast, the interior side of the “L” is defined by full-height windows that create a continuous dialogue with the garden: smaller openings frame fragments of the landscape like paintings, while large glazed panels underline and extend it.
In contrast to the stone mass of the north-eastern front, the inner face of the “L” is rendered in dark wood and glass, articulating daily life with the surrounding landscape. The timber, finished in dark tones reminiscent of those once obtained in Cantabrian architecture through oils and natural dyes, defines a coherent palette completed by the grey limestone from the Tina Menor estuary, used for both interior and exterior flooring, reinforcing the material bond with the territory.
To this range is added red —found in the ceramic roof tiles and the corten steel elements such as frames, trims, and the cantilevered gutter— turning every episode of rain into a small event.
The floor plan distinguishes two wings: one houses the day areas —living room, dining room, and kitchen articulated around a central fireplace and the porch— while the other contains the night zone, with the main bedroom and two additional rooms, one of them transformable through movable partitions.
More than reproducing tradition, the house works with its reverse: the threshold where the vernacular and the contemporary fold over one another. In that tension between mass and lightness, opacity and transparency, wall and void, the house asserts its belonging to the place while speaking unmistakably in the present tense.
