House on the Cliff by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos

Amy Frearson | 19 November 2012 32 comments

This bright-white house in Alicante by Spanish studio Fran Silvestre Arquitectos features an 18-metre-long balcony that stretches out towards the Balearic Sea (+ slideshow + movie).

Fran Silvestre Arquitectos designed the structure as a single monolithic volume that nestles against the rockface whilst also projecting out towards the shoreline.

House on the Cliff by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos

Living rooms and bedrooms are contained within the protruding upper storey and offer panoramic views through an entirely glazed facade.

A staircase climbs through and across an exterior wall to connect these rooms with an infinity pool and terrace.

Concrete was used for the entire structure, but the walls were coated in stucco to create the clean white aesthetic.

The architects explain how they always try to design houses around the habits of future residents. "Dialogue is always present, since the work becomes part of the identity of those who inhabit it," they explain. "This dialogue seeks comfort and also utility, and examines the conflicts and joys of daily acts of human life."

Others houses by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos that we've featured include a residence where all the rooms are on show and a wedge-shaped house that thrusts out from a rock face.

See more Spanish houses on Dezeen, including a house with four hovering concrete wings.

Photography is by Diego Opazo, movie is by Alfonso Calza.

Here's a project description from Fran Silvestre Arquitectos:

House on the Cliff
Calpe, Alicante.

We like the virtue of architecture which makes possible constructing a house on air, walking on water...
An abrupt plot of land overlooking the sea, where what is best is to do nothing. It invites to stay.
A piece that respects the land's natural contour is set in it.
Above, a shadow, the house itself, looking calmly at the Mediterranean.
Under the sun, the swimming-pool brings us closer to the sea, it becomes a quiet cove.
In the inflection point, the stairway proposes a evocative path, a garden in the basement...

Due to the steepness of the plot and the desire to contain the house in just one level, a three-dimensional structure of reinforced concrete slabs and screens adapting to the plot's topography was chosen, thus minimizing the earthwork.

This monolithic, stone-anchored structure generates a horizontal platform from the accessing level, where the house itself is located.

The swimming-pool is placed on a lower level, on an already flat area of the site.

The concrete structure is insulated from the outside and then covered by a flexible and smooth white lime stucco.

The rest of materials, walls, pavements, the gravel on the roof... all maintain the same colour, respecting the traditional architecture of the area, emphasizing it and simultaneously underlining the unity of the house.

Architecture: Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
Project team: Fran Silvestre, María José Sáez - Principals in charge
Maria Masià, Adrián Mora, Jordi Martínez José V. Miguel - Collaborating architects