Underground House: The An­ti­thesis to a House on a Slope

This “underground house” was designed by Swiss studio Bearth & Deplazes in Mergoscia, Switzerland.

Description by Bearth & Deplazes: The an­ti­thesis to a house on a slope: one in a cav­ern, or bet­ter yet: a house in a for­ti­fied cav­ern, which is more of a re­in­force­ment of the steep vine­yard, a type of primal ar­chi­tec­ture or ar­chi­tec­tural ar­chae­ology.

The en­trance: an open­ing in the vine­yard’s quarry-stone re­tain­ing wall, a stair­way to the open ter­race—pure out­door space with a view into the val­ley of Mer­gos­cia.

Only in the back­ground, at the back of the ter­race, the in­terior of a house set into the moun­tain; more cav­ity than build­ing, as the build­ing volume has no façades. Pure in­terior spaces, cast mono­lith­ic­ally from paneled, gray ex­posed con­crete.