‘Casa Brutale’ is a cutting edge residence, built into a cliff, it penetrates the landscape

In a literally groundbreaking integration and made of bare concrete, ‘Casa Brutale’ is a spacious and cutting edge residence, which is built into a cliff, penetrating the landscape.

Working closely together with OPA, Arup is taking the lead in engineering and provides integrated design solutions for structures, building physics, acoustics, lighting and MEP systems, preserving the simplicity or ‘brutality’ of the space and hiding the complex engineering from sight.

This extraordinary underground building benefits from a perfect homeostatic mechanism. The surrounding ground provides thermal insulation. The swimming pool on top of the building takes care of the cooling properties. The high amount of thermal mass plays an important role in major reductions to energy consumption, utilising passive heating and cooling systems with a minimal energy consumption and paramount comfort levels.

The pool has an acrylic pool bottom, resulting in less intrusive joints and connections and a great transparency. Via the pool, diffuse daylight floods into the residence.