Hector Navarro Turns Sand Into a Design Material on Comillas' Waterfront

The redesigned seafront of Comillas treats sand as a building material rather than a nuisance. Instead of removing sand carried inland by wind and beachgoers, the promenade by Hector Navarro + arkhitekton lets it settle within planted areas and permeable paving, where it becomes part of the public space.

Comillas is a small Cantabrian town on Spain's northern coast with a dense architectural heritage. That heritage includes El Capricho, one of Antoni Gaudí's few buildings outside Catalonia. Against this historic backdrop, the intervention addresses the town's shifting relationship with the Cantabrian Sea.

The design team extended the promenade into a new landscape modeled on the dune ecosystems of the Cantabrian coast. The project operates as a linear transition between the built fabric of Comillas and the beach. Vegetation, permeable surfaces, and mineral materials accommodate the coastline's changing conditions rather than resist them.

Limestone riprap anchors the scheme in the rocky coastal landscape. The stone defines edges, seating areas, and transitions between surfaces, while permeable paving allows both water and sand to remain part of the ground. Dune-like planting beds introduce coastal vegetation directly into the promenade, and existing trees provide shaded resting areas overlooking the bay.

The furniture strategy rejects the conventional continuous line of street furniture. Individual benches sit distributed along the route, framing open views toward the sea and creating small places to pause. A single bench, in one instance, frames an unobstructed view of the water. The intervention also reduces the presence of cars and expands pedestrian areas, giving more ground to everyday public use.

Rather than placing an autonomous object on the coastline, the project works with processes already operating on the site: wind, sand, vegetation, water, and movement. A new ice cream kiosk, designed as a light pavilion, integrates into the seafront without interrupting it. Coastal planting and limestone rocks soften the transition toward the town's historic balustrade.

The landscape design was developed by Héctor Navarro together with Diego Jardinería (Diego Cuartas and Adolfo Vila). Photography is by Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán and Rocío Romero).

The project points to a broader shift in coastal design thinking: as Spanish shorelines face intensifying environmental pressure, promenades that absorb natural processes — rather than barricading against them — may become the default model for waterfront regeneration.