Villa BJ is a project designed by CORE Architects and is located in São Brás de Alportel, Portugal. Architect: Anabela Macieira, CORE Architects. Photography by Alexander Bogorodskiy

“This stunning underground house is located in the middle of an old, small village with a church and two cafes. The house has an interesting history as it is owned by charismatic German couple who came to Portugal as ?third world developers? to help the region. Back then, the house was located in an isolated poor area inhabited by farmers, but within the next decades the location grew into one of Portugal?s richest districts.
The clients bought the farm house 30 years ago and decided to extend the cozy, but largely outdated, holiday home into an open space, a modern home for their upcoming retirement. The very steep slope of the plot and the client?s wish to keep the land as untouched as possible, even after the extension, led to the idea of building an underground house ? a house whose envelope is completely embedded in the landscape, camouflaged with a green roof and with big glass curtains, not visible from the road, and opening to the south.
The curved roof-shape was designed to imitate the natural flow of the landscape and continue into roof overhang, which had been carefully calculated to prevent heat coming into the open space living, when the sun stands at its highest point in the summer. During the winter time, t...