Tree House

PROJECT TYPE: Recreational Building
CLIENT: Undisclosed
SIZE: 11,00  sq m
LOCATION: Carapinheira, Portugal 
STATUS: Ongoing
YEAR: 2016

The tree house, is a ephemeral construction, reduced in size and experimental.

The project aims to provide outdoor entertainment for two children. Located near the main house, the tree house was requested initially to be built using an existing tree as its main support. Due to the small port of the tree a different approach needed to be taken. It was then decided that instead of the tree being part of the house it would interact with it, as its center, and the house would evolve around it, in a “U” form.

 

Considering the shad created by the tree during the day and the surrounding trail, a porch would be integrated. The children would be able to play outside freely because the house would act as a visual barrier. Window openings would also be controlled and oriented to the nearby forest.

 

The program is simple, a recreation area, reading and sleeping space. In order to create a unique atmosphere, a “child´s world”, the house is to be elevated by wooden columns above the ground where the interior floor and porch would be on the same level  all part of the recreation area, and a extra floor would be added to provide sleeping space. In between, with the hight of a step, the reading area was inserted, near the main window opening, that funnels the view to the landscape. Nature played the key role of the modulation of the construction, it creates the visual possibilities of the openings defined the form.

The constructed is in wood. The structural frames are cut in a carpentry workshop and them mounted on location. The exterior finishing is with vertical wooden planks.