HOUSE FOR
RURAL HABITS
Perched on a mountaintop in Siero, Asturias, House for Rural Habits is a 148 m², three-story rural home set on a plot dotted with apple trees and a traditional cider llagar, within the cultural landscape of Asturian cider production. Designed as a retreat for a sommelier and wine-culture creative, the project explores contemporary ways of inhabiting the countryside while acknowledging the deep historical and natural character of its setting.
The design transforms a previously dark, compartmentalized structure by opening the interior to daylight and views of the surrounding hills, making the environment the undisputed protagonist. An austere, resilient material palette creates a neutral canvas for strategic color accents that highlight the contemporary intervention without relying on expensive materials. Epoxy floors, tactile yellow rubber flooring, and elemental hues of sun yellow, mountain green, sky blue, and apple red establish this chromatic language.
The house unfolds vertically, with the main floor serving as the center of daily life. Walls were removed to bring living, dining, and cooking into one open space, while large windows on all sides frame the landscape and allow light to shift throughout the day, blurring the boundary between inside and out—even after dark. At the core, a glass-block volume diffuses daylight and glows like a lantern when illuminated at night.
The attic, with its triangular cross-section, serves as both storage and a guest room, offering a quiet refuge under the roof. Below, the cooler, humid basement preserves the original stone walls and their raw sense of place, revealing traditional northern Spanish masonry. A massive foundation block inscribed with the year of construction was cleaned, restored, and integrated into the design, maintaining a tangible connection to the house’s history.
The project embraces the contemporary desire for proximity to nature, not as a definitive migration from city to countryside, but as an opportunity to find refuge, slow down, work the earth, and reconnect with the landscape. Through light, color, and historic layers, the house celebrates its natural surroundings and the passage of time, redefining luxury as experiential richness rather than material opulence.
2025_Asturias, ES.
Photos by Outervision and Antonio Quiroga.