The hinterland of the Opatija Riviera in Croatia is dotted with villas (built within a century and a half). Their upper, front side reveals nothing but entrances beyond which we can only imagine their spaciousness. Their scale and relation to the bay are entirely dependent on the seafront slope.

Although the Nest and Cave remains typologically and morphologically true to the surrounding space as a whole, it develops its “hidden” side through the dialectics of domination over and subordination to the landscape. So, the house and the place it renders are not structured solely by the slope onto which they are built (as it is the case with most villas in Opatija). Instead, it actively constructs the landscape and intertwines with it by laying down the ground level (landscape) and by placing on it an upper object which hovers above as a displaced level. 

idisturato.com (Vimeo)