Buy a French Riviera home in sun-washed colour and concrete

Listed for €1.7m, this 170sqm home in Marseille’s Roucas-Blanc suburb folds into its sloping site with a sculptural presence. The architecture adopts a modern interpretation of brutalism — poured concrete, terracotta claustra and banded glazing — softened by a garden that rises around the house in layers of green. Sunlight moves through the plan in bands, catching textured walls and tiled surfaces that echo the region’s palette.

The house is organised across descending levels that follow the terrain. An unassuming front door leads to an aerial concrete staircase and a flexible studio with its own access and terrace — a self-contained space that can serve guests or be reconfigured for work or additional bedrooms. Two further bedrooms sit above, each treated as a suite and opening onto a rooftop terrace ready to be planted. Throughout, bejmat tile floors and zellige details add warmth to the raw structural language.

The living areas sit lower in the plan, opening wide to a courtyard framed in pink render, green zelliges and a still pool that acts as a mirror to the surrounding greenery. It’s a pocket of near-tropical colour that sharpens the home’s material expression and anchors it in Marseille’s coastal light.