Skip to main content

Cliffs of Insanity: This house will be built right into the rock (Update)

If just the thought of looking down at the ground dozens of stories below through the glass box at the Willis Tower’s Skydeck makes your head spin, you probably won’t want to be first in line to live at Casa Brutale. This cliff dwelling is a conceptual design from Open Platform for Architecture, and it looks equal parts amazing and dizzying.

Architects Laertis-Antonios Ando Vassiliou and Pantelis Kambouropoulos want to design an “inverted reference” to Casa Malaparte. That cliff house, built in 1942, reaches skyward with its upended-pyramid stairs. Casa Brutale, on the other hand, would dive down into the cliff itself and be mostly underground. “The optical impact of the building on the landscape is minimal, with only one façade on the cliff side and no volume extruding from the ground level,” according to the architects’ website.

The design was also inspired by traditional Greek vernacular architecture that is “wisely integrated in the landscape, more sustainable and ecological than most contemporary architectural solutions” Vassiliou told Slate. Made of glass, wood, and concrete (even the bed is made of concrete, though  presumably you’d still get a mattress), the 1,938-square-foot home would be accessible by a staircase or elevator. The roof would actually be the bottom of a swimming pool and “a continuation of the poetic Aegean Sea and in perfect communication with the vast blue of the Greek sky,” the architects write.

Last year, Australian architecture firm Modscape debuted its own conceptual design for a cliff house, though that one was literally hanging off the cliff. The Casa Brutale would look slightly less dramatic from the water and would probably be slightly less vertigo-inducing. Still, the architects are still looking for someone with the gall and gold to build the house.

Update 3/18/2016: Designboom reports OPA (Open Platform for Architecture) will actually build Casa Brutale in Beirut, Lebanon. 

Jenny McGrath
Former Senior Writer, Home
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
Tineco carpet cleaner at lowest-ever price for Prime Day — here’s how to save more
A man using the Tineco Carpet One Cruiser Smart Carpet Cleaner.

Not all vacuum deals will be able to provide in-depth cleaning for your carpet. You're going to need something more specialized, and we highly recommend the Tineco Carpet One Cruiser. From its original price of $699, it's available from Amazon's Prime Day for its lowest-ever price of $489, but you can get an additional 5% off with the checkout code TIN25PDPR. That means you'll only have to pay $465 for this smart carpet cleaner, for total savings of $234, but you'll need to act fast as we're not sure if the stocks that are up for sale will last until the final minutes of the shopping holiday.

BUY NOW

Read more
Tineco vacuum nearly $300 off for Prime Day — use this code for extra savings
The Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 cordless vacuum cleaner cleaning a spill.

In one of the most attractive vacuum deals that you can shop for Prime Day, Amazon has slashed the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 to its lowest-ever price of $319 from its sticker price of $599. However, we've got a code for you to be able to get the cordless wet-dry vacuum cleaner with an extra 5% off — just enter TIN25PDPR during the checkout process so that you'll only have to pay $303, for total savings of $296. That's an excellent offer that you wouldn't want to miss, and you better hurry if you want to take advantage of it as it may not remain available until the end of the shopping holiday.

$303 at Amazon

Read more
Tineco’s docking vacuum has a special Prime Day price, but you can get it cheaper
A Tineco Pure One next to its charging base.

Vacuums feel like they're getting more and more expensive, and not just robot vacuum and mop combos, but ordinary hand vacs. You can go to Walmart and see bagged, corded vacuums that cost hundreds of dollars. It doesn't have to be that way. Tineco's Pure One vacuum brings power and convenience for the same price that other vacuums have, but with new features instead of going backwards into the world of cords and bags. Usually $459, it is down to $319 for Prime Day (that's a savings of $140 already) and we're happy to report you can get an extra 5% off with the code TIN25PDPR on Amazon. Tap the button below to see the vacuum yourself and snag this great deal, or keep reading for what makes this vacuum truly unique.

BUY NOW

Read more