An existing summer house on a steep continuous slope was the starting point for this project. Casa Barone is an ultra-modern hillside house designed by Sweden architects WRB. The old house sat in the middle of the property leaving only unusable narrow and highly sloping ground around it. A main issue was therefore to regain the property and to create flat areas with good sun conditions for outdoor activities. We placed the building on the northern property boarder leaving most of the property unexploited facing south. The biggest part of the building is dug into the slope, creating a large horizontal platform in ground level. Half of this platform is taken up by the upper floor of the building: the other half remains an outdoor terrace in direct connection to the kitchen inside. Next to the kitchen is the living area, which, from its elevation position, faces the water view as well as the upper half of two large oak trees.

The studio, or rather a place for inspiration and creation of precious art for this Italian painter and his Swedish wife, makes an abrupt change to its traditional Swedish pitched roof neighbors. The building glitters as a golden shrine penetrated with large black windows as it sits in the rocky slope in between sculptural pine trees.

Photos: Ake E:son Lindman