Single-family house in urban area in front of the sea. The starting conditions of the plot are very complex:

• Plot of small dimensions between party walls and whose rear bottom is a semi-excavation of a slope of land, which makes it a bottom of sack.

• The plot is elevated 2.25 m above street level. The front of the plot facing the street is already built with an earth retaining wall up to that height. This wall also has a certain heritage value as it is a hundred years old and is finished with beach sand plaster, as was done in the vernacular tradition, so the planning requires it to be maintained.

• The access, therefore, since it cannot be made from the street, is through a semi-private ramp 1.20 m wide, which comes from the corner of the block and passes in front of other properties.

• The last 1.5 m of the back of the plot is part of a slope of land that also supports the plot of a neighboring house, which is at an elevated height of 7 m. on our plot. Due to the small size of the plot, it is necessary to excavate that 1.5 m of slope to fit the new house. This, due to the complexity of getting excavation machinery into the site because of the elevated position of the plot from the street, makes its execution very difficult.

• The house on the rear plot, located 7 m above our plot, also has a view easement, which limits the construction to two floors. This prevents the new dwelling from continuing at the same height as the other dwellings that form the built-up front of the block.

The client wanted to build two apartments, as a second residence, one for each son. Local regulations do not allow two houses on such a small plot, so a house has been designed to function as two overlapping apartments, open and equal, but with a common entrance.

The project aims to serve as a link in the block front of which it forms part between traditional and more contemporary architecture, which we find on both sides of the plot.

In order to achieve independence between the two apartments, the balcony on the upper floor is closed perimetrically in such a way that on the one hand it frames the sea views and on the other hand it manages to reduce the dominant position on the terrace of the lower apartment. It was also intended to generate two distinct and meaningful situations for the two apartments, which gave a certain specificity to each and made it more difficult to choose which one to keep.