An Atypical Tree House
When a 40-year-old pine tree fell over at the rear of a Brentwood estate in Los Angeles a few years back, its owner, an art lover and a philanthropist, let it lie. The tree revived itself, continuing to grow from its newfound horizontal position. At that point, the owner decided to honor its resilience by incorporating it into a 172-square-foot office / guest house.
While most tree houses have a trunk running vertically, this structure floats above the tree, suggesting the delicate tension between nature and the built environment. Serving as an inhabitable sculpture – a refuge, a gallery and a guest cottage – it's perched atop a hill and overlooks canyon vistas, downtown Los Angeles and the Getty Center.
Rockefeller Partners Architects spent about eight months on the design. “It was a complex little puzzle,” said Chris Kempel, the project’s architect. “It was like taking a box and poking it with chopsticks,” he said about five slightly canted steel columns that pierce its cedar exterior. “We had a bunch of fun with it.”
To reconnect back to the fallen tree, the architects carved a portal in the walnut floor, affording a view of the inspiration for the house itself.
Check out the slideshow to see more images of the project.
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Form Us With Friends opening #design http://t.co/qeHXIRzb
Great idea!! Would love to work in this tree house office.
That looks incredibly nice. Very sophisticated & beautifully put together! I might add, it also looks incredibly expensive. I'd be afraid to ask what the final bill added up to.
Love the place! Note, re pic 2, those are not strictly clerestory windows (or clerestory lights). Typically clerestories are what you find above a row of columns in cathedrals, ie high-level glazing that brings light into the inner part of a large room or space. You can walk under a clerestory window, as it is supported by columns, beams etc., and there is no wall underneath it that goes to floor level. Quite hard to explain in words... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerestory
M2 is correct that these windows would not fall under a strict definition for a church's or cathedral's clerestory windows. These would fall under a more evolved, secular and commonly used definition of the word. To be sure, www.about.com defines a clerestory as "a high wall with a band of narrow windows along the very top. The clerestory wall usually rises above adjoining roofs. Originally, the word clerestory referred to the upper level of a church or cathedral." To illustrate a clerestory window, www.about.com uses a photo of Frank Lloyd Wright's Zimmerman House (http://architecture.about.com/od/structural/g/clerestory.htm).
That is so amazing! I could work in that office all day.
I am much more impressed with the respect for nature the owner of this property has honored. The fact that he believed in the tree enough to continue life in a different direction which inspired him to create a work of art. Very cool!
Amazing, absolutely amazing. And oh, Kat, that he is she, Laura, and she does inspire. TP
Magnificent craftsmanship. The detail is excellent. An example of form following function and vice versa. A difficult design and even more difficult to build. It all works.
Thanks for the compliment Frederick. I felt like Henry David Thoreau with a nail gun. All parties involved worked in unison for a gem of a project and mutual respect of one another was held by all. This is what can happen when people care and give a, well, a HOOT!
Neat hut. Is it really honoring nature? It looks to me like this is revision number 25. You know, the revision where the project has lost all real connections to nature and the original idea but the client finally likes it. The only real connection left is the narrative describing the journey from tree house to neat elevated guest house/work space.
I fail to see how the excessive use of high energy- and resource-consuming materials used with a flagrant disregard for any sense of conservation or economy constitutes a love of nature. All that steel and conctrete and glass are the antithesis of environmental sustainability. This is an assalt on nature, but unfortunately, on par for dwell, which seems to espouse the notion that a "glass building on a mountain top" is somehow hip and green. I'm guessing working in your Prius with the AC on would be more green than this "office" over their respective lifetimes of practical use. Well, I hope at least the owner's a vegetarian...
G O R G E O U S
Fastidious design, BUT, such over consumption of resources for less than 200 SF honors nature? Enough concrete for a bomb shelter just to reshape the terrain so you can get to it. 8 months design & 18 months to construct? Thoreau with a nail gun??? Have you lost all perspective? Tell the truth, someone with too much money trying to improve their view with total disregard to their surroundings.
Mike, The more appropriate word for the windows surrounding the structure at the upper portion of walls which support the windows I believe would be "transom", not celestory, whether the strict or secular definition of the word is followed. In fact the example you provided illustrates Wrights use of celestory windows at the roof level, where underneath there is no wall supporting those windows. They float above the room below. The while the windows below the roof level, in the Wright example would either be a portion of the floor to ceiling windows or transoms. I did not know there was a secular definition of celestory. "The clerestory wall usually rises above adjoining roofs". In this tree house the windows referred to as celestory do not rise above the adjoining roof, they sit below the roof, which is more appropriately defined as a transom. For a common definition from Wiki see "Transom (architectural), the horizontal lintel or beam across a window, dividing it into stages or heights. In the U.S. it also can refer to a fixed window over a door or another window." or Miriam Webster "1 : a transverse piece in a structure : crosspiece: as a : lintel b : a horizontal crossbar in a window, over a door, or between a door and a window or fanlight above it c : the horizontal bar or member of a cross or gallows d : any of several transverse timbers or beams secured to the sternpost of a boat; also : the planking forming the stern of a square-ended boat 2 : a window above a door or other window built on and commonly hinged to a transom"
I’m not sure the parti is really about honoring the tree at all. The design preserves the tree in that it was not removed but I don’t think you can even see the tree from inside to enjoy it – the interior space seems to me to turn it’s back to the tree. That said, I really do enjoy the aesthetics of the design.
It's interesting that, although this looks like the high point of the hill and affords a "nice view" back toward the valley, the choice is to place most of the windows facing toward the hillside--I'm sure it makes the space feel a bit more "cosy", as opposed to feeling like a lookout tower. However, I was thinking it might have been a good compromise to extend a small porch near the entrance. Also, the (post)modern design seems a bit weird floating above what looks like a mission/ranch style home... I love the design, but could imagine a terraced mission-style guest house, with all the same basic features, being more harmonious with main house.
Lovely!
Magnificent craftsmanship. The detail is excellent. An example of form following function and vice versa. A difficult design and even more difficult to build. It all works. I agree with Frederick G. who recognizes magnificent craftsmanship. The architect and photographer are both given credit due. what about the builder? It would have been fair to recognize the builder by name.
A Zebala, Dziekuje
There aren't many contractor/builders who can execute this level of detailed design to such perfection. Tom Preis, of Santa Monica, CA, is one of them. We know. He did the same with our home, and we couldn't be more pleased with his work.
To pay eight months of architectural fees for a shed/cabin design must be a record in itself. Please tell me that a great deal of the design work was gratis or done for grocery bagger wages.
come on...typical cynical architect. the story of the tree is magnificent; the structure respects it's suroundings, and yes, uses a lot of high end material at (probably) an extradordinary price. but who cares? The form is beautiful, the wood is warm and inviting and appears to need a lot of retaining structure to hold back the earth and to endure over time. If the client has the resources then so be it...It is a livable sculpture that any talented architect would love to have the opportunity to work on!
Matthew, Thanks for your insightful comments. The concrete was about 1/6 the cost and was done by KGM of Culver City, CA. and it was great to work with their foreman Christian. Any questions you or anyone else has re: the execution of the project, tompreisconstruction@gmail.com To Robert F., And what is good Phaedrus, and what is not good, need we ask anyone to tell us these things. Quit flying too low to the ground 'cause the fast ones will go right over your head. Tom Preis
This is an interesting structure,but I don`t see any relationship to the tree.As a designer and lover of Japanese ideas,I would have done something that was in keeping with the tree-shape -form etc..You only see the tree in the back ground and not much of it.I feel that the tree could have been intergrated in to the design.Since there seems no limit on expense, this should not have been a problem.
Spectacular little culmination of modernity.
I've always thought my Uncle Tom was a little crazy and now I know it. ...crazy like Dali and Van Gogh. Remarkable. Worthy of attention. Worthy of applause. Call me biased. Jim Preis
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