On the Croatian island of Vis, in a Mediterranean environment, the Issa Grotto Hill House was conceived as a temporary family retreat that must through a high degree of formal and energetic autonomy deal with the near absence of infrastructures, a situation endemic to the area. The attention to the Mediterranean genius loci comes in two forms: on the one hand, through a clear deference to the landscape, with the building almost completely buried in order to go unnoticed; on the other hand, through the use of local construction materials and systems, such as walls of stone masonry with dry joints, which here serve as retaining walls and to form a series of topographical platforms. As for autonomy, it is achieved by means of passive strategies like taking advantage of the thermal inertia of the ground, natural ventilation, nighttime cooling, and the gathering and recycling of rainwater, all this with the help of active mechanisms like photovoltaic and thermosolar panels and photoenergetic cells that together provide energy to the building.

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