Raúl Sánchez designs in Cala Tamarit a house suspended between the forest and the horizon, where matter becomes the essence of dwelling

In a corner of Cala Tamarit (Tarragona), where the forest descends towards a ravine overlooking the Mediterranean with a mixture of vertigo and calm, architect Raúl Sánchez designs a house that seems carved rather than built. An architecture that stems, paradoxically, from a desire for weight: “a solid… heavy house,” as the architect describes the request of its owners, a couple immersed in the digital realm who sought, for their home, the opposite of the volatility that defines their professional world. “Accustomed to an environment where all that is solid fades into air, their future house had to offer not only shelter, but a physical experience,” he explains.

Matter as refuge

This house is conceived as a dense, tangible body in which matter anchors experience. Two tinted reinforced-concrete walls define its most primal gesture: they fold towards the entrance and generate a sunken patio, a descent into a world where the presence of the exterior is reduced to sky and silence. The imprint of the formwork, deliberately visible, turns the concrete into a record of time, a surface that reflects light and the passing of the hours.

The dwelling, arranged without explicit hierarchies, organises its interior life through blocks containing bathrooms, wardrobes or the kitchen. These are autonomous pieces, slightly shifted from one another, avoiding corridors and encouraging multiple possible routes. Living thus becomes a changing journey, where space never exhausts itself in a single gaze.

The spatial sequence unfolds and contracts with choreographic precision: the contained intimacy of the entrance suddenly opens into the luminous kitchen facing the pine forest; and from there, or from the access, the double-height living room appears in its full verticality, accompanied by a terrace overlooking the landscape. From this point, a series of platforms descends towards the pool, placed right on the edge where the land falls into the ravine.

A fertile ambiguity

The house admits layered readings. Its structural solidity is contradicted by cantilevers that appear to defy logic; the upper screens rest on unexpected openings; the fissure through which the staircase rises to the roof introduces a crack that “breaks” slabs that should otherwise be continuous. The architecture oscillates between opposites: closed and open, dark and bright, rough and smooth. An ambiguous territory that enhances, in the architect’s words, the “phenomenological experience” of the work.

Responsible materiality

The sought-after solidity does not forgo environmental responsibility. The reinforced concrete, executed with reduced carbon footprint, replaces much of its cement with natural pozzolans and recycled aggregates; the house incorporates cross-ventilation, a rainwater cistern, aerothermal systems, and a careful orientation that regulates light and shade. Added to this is a sustainably sourced larch-wood façade, fitted with a sequence of “ribs” that shelter the openings and filter sunlight.

A setting for inhabiting art and design

In a project where matter takes the lead, furniture and art act as a sensitive counterpoint, introducing layers of history, tradition and contemporaneity. Classics by Scarpa, Mackintosh, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Miguel Milá, selected through Fénix Originals, coexist with sculptural pieces by Maxime Halot and Alex Bellotti, represented by EastWest Space.

On the walls, the luminous geometries of Francisco Suárez —the Lumen series, in several of its versions— meet the delicate watercolours of Malgosia Jankowska, both from Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo. The result is an interior meant to be lived in the silence of contemplation.

In the kitchen, ceramics by Catalina Montaña bring a manual, earthly gesture. In the suite, the China Chair by Chen Darui dialogues with a tapestry by Tasio Ranz, while the Discus 50 piece by Bartosz Zygmunt greets visitors at the entrance as a subtle signal of the home’s artistic sensibility. Through this constellation of works, the house becomes a space that grows with its inhabitants: a place where each piece finds its place, and each wall knows how to wait for future acquisitions by a family that embraces art as a natural part of everyday life.

A balance sculpted into the topography

The house settles into the slope, taking advantage of each fold of the terrain. The ground floor is semi-buried to balance excavation soils and provide thermal inertia; the basement shifts to adapt to natural terraces; and the northeast–southwest orientation captures the right amount of light for each room. Located 150 metres from the sea, the dwelling maintains a constant dialogue with the horizon, strengthened by proportions governed by the golden section.

In a fast-paced world, the architecture of this house invites a pause; and in the digitalised environment in which its owners work, it offers an intense, physical experience. It is a house made to inhabit time: a solid piece that, like the rock and the light of the Tarragona coast, aspires to endure.

Project: Casa en Cala Tamarit
Location: Cala Tamarit (Tarragona).
Built area: 355 m².
Completed: 2025.
Architecture: Raúl Sánchez.
Photography: David Zarzoso.
Project team: Architecture –Paolo Burattini, Flavia Thalisa Gütermann, Carlos Montes.
Structure: Diagonal estructuras.
Engineering: Marés ingenieros.
Technical Architect: Jordi Juncosa.
Aluminium carpentry: Jaume Costa.
Wood façades and windows: Ar.Mol.
Metal work: Metal Ware.
Interior wood carpentry: Valles Carpintería.
Source: Raúl Sánchez Architects

Raúl Sánchez

The architecture of Raúl Sánchez is not built solely from matter, but also from ideas, emotions, and silences. From his studio in Barcelona, Raúl Sánchez Architects, founded in 2006, he has developed a practice that challenges conventions without disturbing harmony, where each project becomes an opportunity to explore the limits of space, light, and perception.

Trained as an architect at the University of Granada, Sánchez’s career has been marked by a persistent experimental vocation. He does not seek to repeat formulas, but to formulate questions. He is drawn as much to voids as to solids, to unexpected geometries and paths that resist clear definition, and to that subtle line where the technical and the sensory merge. His work speaks through a distinctive language: precise, bold, and profoundly respectful of context.

In each of his projects, whether restorations, single-family homes, ephemeral installations, or interiors with strong narrative intensity, there is a clear intent to transform the everyday into the extraordinary. His approach is deeply conceptual, yet never detached from the physical. For Sánchez, architecture is a spatial experience that must be felt, explored, and lived. And it is in that movement where beauty emerges.

He is currently working in cities such as New York, Munich, Barcelona, and Madrid, and his projects have been widely published and awarded both in Spain and internationally.

Beyond his professional practice, Raúl Sánchez is also deeply engaged in academia. Since 2017, he has been a design studio professor in the Interior Design program at Elisava School of Design and Engineering in Barcelona.

Raúl Sánchez designs with rigor, but also with risk. He believes in architecture as a form of thought, built from measured gestures, intentional voids, and materials that age with dignity. His spaces do not reveal themselves all at once: they invite, suggest, accompany. And in that quiet companionship, those who inhabit them come to discover that living can also be a form of contemplation.

Project by Raúl Sánchez