Cabrera Arqs   Mexico   Meant to be a place for reflection, silence, and prayer, and for a community whose members practice different religions, this underground chapel disappears in the landscape of San Antonio Baspul, a locality within the municipality of Chicxulub Pueblo

Junya Ishigami + associates   Japan   In Ube, a city in Yamaguchi Prefecture, stands this cave house with a small restaurant included that was built for a chef. When the restaurant is closed, its dining area doubles as a family room and the owners’ children can do their homework there.

Snøhetta   Denmark   Situated near Jægersborg Deer Park, north of Copenhagen, Ordrupgaard houses Northern Europe’s most comprehensive collection of French and Danish art from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Originally built as a three-winged country mansion in the neo

Miller & Maranta   Switzerland   When we speak of the Swiss Guard, what comes to mind are the Michelangelesque uniforms of the Vatican regiment, not so much the agonizing lion that Bertel Thorvaldsen designed to be sculpted in Lucerne to honor the Helvetian soldiers massacred defend

Twobo arquitectura Luis Twose   Spain   The town of Vilajuïga is in a privileged location, between Serra de Verdera and Cap de Creus natural park, and is well connected to the rest of the region. With a population slightly over 1,000 inhabitants, Vilajuïga has a long food and wine traditio

Aires Mateus   Portugal   Known for the famous medieval castle after which it is named, the municipality of Leiria spreads by the banks of the Lis River. This compact single-family house goes up on a hill on the outskirts of the city, on a site in a high position overlooking

Junya Ishigami + associates   Japan   Taking inspiration from the dark and humid atmosphere of wineries, this cave-house evokes the passage of time reflected through the process of sedimentation and erosion; it is also evocative of the world of labyrinthine galleries excavated by worms;

Werner Tscholl   Italy   Literally carved in the rock, the house nevertheless arises from ecological and sustainable criteria. First: occupy unproductive land, in such a way that the construction continues the local tradition of making the most of available fertile ground. S

David Chipperfield Architects   Italy   Located in the hills close to the city of Vicenza, the Cavea Arcari was the quarry that provided the precious Pietra Bianca di Vicenza that was used to build, among other buildings, the famous villas of Andrea Palladio. The contour of the exploitatio

Studio Anne Holtrop   Netherlands   Fort Vechten is the second largest of 48 fortresses that were erected along the New Dutch Waterline, a military barrier that started to go up back in the 18th century, consisting of an 85-kilometer-long ring that could be flooded to keep the enemy at

BIG Bjarke Ingels Group   Denmark   Some time into World War ii, the Germans began to fortify the coasts of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defence against an anticipated Allied invasion that eventually took place in Normandy. Stretching hundreds of kilometers, this military ba

Cao Ye Cai Yongjie   China   The earthquake that hit Wenchuan County on 12 May 2008 was the second deadliest ever to be recorded in China, leaving close to 70,000 dead, 375,000 wounded, and losses estimated at 123,000 million dollars. Built in the locality of Qushan (Sichuan pro

Rudy Ricciotti   France   The ocher-toned concrete monolith surrounded by the ruins of prison sheds harbors the museum conceived to remind the world of some of the most terrible episodes of 20th-century France.

Archikubik Enllaç arquitectònic   Spain   The unearthing of the Rei Martí water storage deposit, built late in the 19th century, was accidental. The old cistern of the estate of the Torre Bellesguard, a work of Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona’s Sarrià-Sant Gervasi neighborhood, had been hidden ben

Burgos & Garrido LLAMA Urban Design   Peru   Echoing Limas traditional courtyards, the museum features an open-air space that wraps up the park and makes it possible to regulate the flow of visitors by leading them to the new entrances. 

Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited   Canada   Camouflaged by a thick layer of snow, the only exterior signs of the existence of this shelter, built with corrugated sheet tubes made in a workshop and then towed, are the colorful openings, inspired in the portable holes of Looney Tunes cartoons.  

B-ILD   Netherlands   Con una superficie interior de 3 x 3 metros, el búnker alberga únicamente estar y dormitorio, mientras que el resto de actividades se realizan en una plataforma exterior de tablones de madera cuya superficie iguala a la de la planta de la antigua con

Archea Associati   Italy   To blend the construction into the landscape and preserve the continuity of the vineyards, the entire functional program of this winery in Tuscany’s Chianti area is set underground.

Werner Tscholl   Italy   The 2,500 square meters of the school program are organized underground, so the only visible elements outside are a green roof, three square courtyards, and a silent stone wall.

Steven Holl Cowi   Denmark   The museum is organized in three parts: ‘under the sea’ consists of five translucid glass islands of light that emerge from a reflecting pond; ‘under the earth’ is an elevated triangular roof; and ‘under the sky’, the entry pavilion, is a convex glas

David Chipperfield Architects   Denmark   Inspired by the 19th century ‘wunderkammer’, the museum has a large underground pavilion and three pavilions for botanic collections that re-emerge at the surface with their glass facades and slanted roofs reminiscent of historic greenhouses... 

Nuno Ribeiro Lopes   Portugal   The volcanic eruption of 1957 transformed the landscape of the island of Fayal in the Azores, burying the lighthouse that stood on the western tip of the island and opening up a new and important chapter in the scientific understanding of underwater

Elisa Valero   Spain   The motto of the project, ‘A Crossed Garden’, sums up the purpose of the intervention: to create an underground space for art works that serves to connect two houses and maintains the composition of the preexisting garden.

Dominique Perrault   Frédéric Migayrou   Our relationship with the ground keeps us continually attached to what is the essence of a truly geographic approach, to our cultural tendency to accept the idea of making a mark, of a foundation, of geography in the literal sense, the one of rootedn

Luis Fernández-Galiano   The dark light of hidden spaces is fascinating and confusing. On one hand, it is hard not to succumb to the oneiric attraction of enigmas, and the descent to the depths of the earth is a symbolic itinerary of initiation that captures us with its mine

La arquitecta Elisa Valero ha construido un nuevo espacio para albergar la colección de arte del empresario, mecenas y presidente del Patronato del Museo del Prado, Plácido Arango. En la sierra de Madrid, en una finca cercana a El Escorial, una const

Bjarne Mastenbroek   Building Bound to the Ground