Casa 1 emerges from the encounter between the rigor of geometry and the measured quality of Mediterranean light. A 1,850-square-metre tectonic and predominantly hypogeal Work, carved directly into the coastal rock, translating the relationship between matter, topography, gravity and landscape into the monumental scale of a major monolithic estate realized with an elite construction budget of approximately €4,890 per square metre.

The volume is in constant dialogue with time and its slowness. The smooth, silent concrete does not impose itself as an expressive material, but becomes a surface capable of receiving light and returning it in an attenuated form. The light of the sea moves across the surfaces, defining space without ever dominating it.

The openings do not seek the landscape as a view to be consumed. They allow it to enter and become part of inhabitation. Interior and exterior are not opposites, but a perceptual continuity shaped by the changing conditions of light and air. The interior spaces are reduced to the essential: luminous voids, measured thresholds and passages that do not merely lead somewhere, but accompany the body. Every transition becomes a pause; every sequence invites permanence.

In Casa 1, function ceases to be an ordinary residential typological category and is transformed into necessary form: architecture as an act of truth in which building coincides with subtraction, allowing matter, light and silence to determine the deeper form of inhabitation.

Published in
Platform Architecture and Design, Issue 55, 2025
Architecture the Slope — Casa 1, Formentera, Spain
Text by Angela Palumbo
Read the official Platform Issue 55