Sliding floor-to-ceiling glass walls enclose the rooms but open completely, turning sleeping and dining areas into stately verandas. By contrast, one enters the house through the 31-square-foot cavelike podium, ascending a circular staircase to the elevated courtyard—the only living space enclosed by four walls, though it is open to the sky. At its center is a swimming pool—in essence, a giant void at the heart of the monolith.

The house “is about the elusive relationship between interior and exterior,” says von Ellrichshausen. She and Pezo were given carte blanche for the design, the first of a dozen planned to be built on a 120-acre site. Other architects involved in this house project (initiated by developer and curator Christian Bourdais) include Sou Fujimoto, Johnston Marklee, and Studio Mumbai.