No, this pictorial isn’t about fancy treehouses — at least not exclusively. It’s about earthly dwellings in which waterfalls cascade down walls, bathrooms are overrun by foliage and forests explode through kitchens.
Photos: Travis Price Architects
The Hayes Residence by Travis Price Architects is located in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. The main room was built around a pair of trees, which were preserved in glass casings and now serve as living works of art.
Photos: Terry & Terry Architecture
The Bal House in Menlo Park, California is a remodeled mid century ranch house with an addition in the back. The two buildings are connected by a transparent hallway that allows the garden to extend into the core of the house.
Photos: Baumraum
The aptly named Treehouse, by German design firm Baumraum, consists of two cabins connected by a zigzagging staircase and terrace. The eco-friendly design rests on 19 angled steel stilts, ensuring the house has minimal impact on the forest floor.
Photo: imgur
This glass-bottom bathroom doesn’t really surround nature so much as it looms over it. Poached from our best bathtubs series.
Photos: DesignBoom
The kitchen in this wooden bungalow in Lima, Peru is framed around an existing tree, which pokes through an open, wood beam ceiling that filters light into the home.
Photo: Ehrlich Architects
Included in our outdoor room roundup, the open-concept 700 Palms Residence in San Francisco was designed to dissolve the barriers between indoors and out. And lo! The living room and backyard are one and the same.
Photos: WholeTrees/Facebook
The above photos depict three separate rooms in three separate houses, each built by Wisconsin-based green design firm WholeTree Architecture. The company’s preferred building method, for which it is named, makes use of the entire tree as opposed to milling it down for “parts.” WholeTree Architecture also works to source its timber from thinner “weed” trees, which would otherwise be impeding the growth of larger, healthier trees.
Photos: Remy Architects
Buenos Aires’ Carrara House is surrounded and penetrated by water. An indoor waterfall and pond is the center piece of the striking entrance area.
Photos: PAZ Arquitectura
Located on a dense hillside forest in the Santa Rosalía area of Guatemala City, the bulk of this house is suspended above the forest floor. In further deference to the environment, the architect built around existing trees rather than cutting them down.
Photo: imgur
This bright, foliage-filled bathrooms allows you to connect with nature whenever you have to answer its call. Part of our previous post: 7 stunning showers worth a standing ovation.
