Collection by Diana Budds
Ways to Incorporate Trees into Homes
In the following slideshow, spy seven ways that architects and designers crafted their structures around trees.
When Jeremy and Robin Levine remodeled their house in the Eagle Rock district of Los Angeles, they chose to keep it at the scale, if not the style, of other houses in the neighborhood. They expanded it back and front by building shady decks around existing trees. The sliding, slatted doors of triple-panel wood reinforce the inside-outside living experience. A young, drought-tolerant Tristania conferta (also known as Australian brush box tree) grows up through the chill-out room under the deck at the rear of the house.
It’s not easy to transform a 15-foot-wide building site—wedged between houses in every direction—into a home that feels more spacious than its location allows. Mamm-design’s solution was to dedicate two-thirds of this tiny 653-square-foot house in Tokyo to a 20-foot-high garden room to bring a sense of the outdoors in. A centrally positioned evergreen ash anchors the airy terrace, which is paved with complementary gray bricks. The kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and workspace are all connected to the central space, transforming the covered veranda into a surrealistic theatrical setting for day-to-day life.