After deciding to climb a tree in his garden and declaring that he never wanted to come down again, the protagonist of Italo Calvino’s “Barone Rampante” ends up deliberately moving only through woods and forests and building his own existential dimension in the trees. Without obviously going as far as a paroxysmal idea of escape and denial of real life, this relationship with Nature, which is not only ecstatic-contemplative in a romantic sense but also profoundly functional and prosaic, is a leitmotif that guides, in recent history, the work of many famous architects who have conceived the landscape not as a simple “backdrop” but as a structuring and founding part of the design and way of living and dwelling.
Eleven architectural masterpieces surrounded by greenery
Among woods, hills and waterfalls, but also in the city, Nature is a design element that insinuates itself powerfully into the built work, becoming an integral part and an inspiring principle.
Photo by Peter Guthrie licenced under CC
Photo by Peter Guthrie licensed under CC
Photo by Orangejack licenced under CC
Photo by Kevinq2000 licenced under CC
Photo by Un rosarino en Vietnam licenced under CC
Photos by OfHouses licenced under CC
Photos by OfHouses licenced under CC
Photo by OfHouses licenced under CC
Photo by OfHouses licenced under CC
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- Chiara Testoni
- 28 April 2022
Houses among the trees literally “on tiptoe” to reduce the built footprint (Mendes da Rocha, Butantã House; Perugini, Perugini, De Plaisant, Experimental House; Lacaton & Vassal, House at Cap Ferret; Go Hasegawa & Associates, Pilotis in a Forest House); houses that are a “medium” to travel and experience nature (Glenn Murcutt, Simpson-Lee House; SANAA, Grace Farms River Building) and that are concretely integrated in it (Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater; Aires Mateus, House in Monsaraz); works in which the context gives off a vaguely “animist” aura (Asplund and Lewerentz, Cemetery in the Stockholm Woods) and in which the building draws new lifeblood from the forms and energy of Nature (Ricardo Bofill, Fàbrica) and tools for sustainability (Renzo Piano Building Workshop, California Academy of Science). To demonstrate perhaps, with the “Barone Rampante”, that between the chirping of birds and the squeaking of squirrels among the leaves, the idea of a “nest” in which to really find peace and refuge – and perhaps oneself – is not so crazy.
The complex with its crematorium, chapels, meditation hill and burial grounds is situated in a vast wooded area with plains, wood and clearings and is an example of a fine balance between artifice and nature. Here hares, roe deer and squirrels run to accompany visitors to the farewell, although death is not experienced as an "end" but as a "transition" to another dimension, thanks to the process of rebirth that finds its confirmation in the regeneration times of Nature.
Wright said that "if you listen to the sound of Fallingwater you hear the stillness of the countryside". And indeed, there is nothing more peaceful than catching, nestled comfortably in the protection of a home retreat, the sounds of the forest. Nestled among the hills of Mill Run on the natural waterfall of Bear Run, the house with its disruptive cantilevered volumes clad in quarry stone is a passionate declaration of love of the designer to Nature and underlies a relentless search for a balance between Man, technology and landscape.
If for all architects the idea of a house/studio made to measure for themselves is the most tempting challenge, La Fàbrica is the place "of the heart" that the Spanish architect has chosen to house his home and his studio (as well as exhibition venues, rooms for concerts and cultural events): an old cement factory from the 1920s that has been brought back to life thanks to a regeneration process that has never been completed, in a somewhat surrealist atmosphere immersed in the evocative Mediterranean landscape among palms, olive trees and eucalyptus trees.
Nestled in the spectacular scenery of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney among rocks, forests and ancient aboriginal tracks, a house with a "monastic" character (as requested by the clients), made of simple and resistant materials (concrete, steel and corrugated iron) embodies the designer's deep attention to the idea of "home" as an essential and welcoming refuge and to the fusion with the natural context with which the building relates almost as a "gateway" to access the valley.
If you meet a tree, don't cut it down, but invite it to become an integral part of the construction: this is the approach of the duo of French designers, Pritzker Prize in 2021, who in the house in Cap Ferret have conceived the architecture in total subordination to the landscape of the Arcachon basin where it is located. The house, raised a few meters above ground level and made with natural materials (wood and metal) enhances the concept of a simple living literally "among the trees", a bit to evoke the symbiotic spirit of the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale by Sverre Fehn.
Located inside Golden Gate Park, the headquarters of the California Academy of Sciences, the research institute and museum of science and natural history in San Francisco is a work under the banner of the most convinced sustainability, from the use of recycled materials to the use of a strong vegetation component, symbolically represented by the enveloping green roof with concave and convex trend that promotes the recovery of rainwater, thermal insulation and the increase of biodiversity.
Three hours away from Tokyo, a vacation home with a focus on lightness: an ethereal volume in wood and metal suspended at 6.5 meters on pilotis seems to literally float among the trees, offering from the square on the ground floor and from the warm and welcoming living spaces on the first floor a continuous and totalizing interaction with the forest.
This not particularly well known location outside of the States is home to two of North America's most iconic pieces of architecture: Philip Johnson's Glass House and SANAA's Grace Farms River Building. Home to a philanthropic foundation, the building designed by the Japanese firm is an integral part of the landscape: a transparent and light construction that softly unrolls among the undulating lines of the hills and where all the functional areas (auditorium, library, reception spaces, restaurant and cultural and multifunctional spaces) follow one another under a single enveloping roof.
A camouflaged house immersed in the lake landscape on the shores of Lake Alqueva, covered by a soft green dome "pierced" by zenithal openings, with its accentuated curved lines and plastic and sculptural volumes in exposed concrete evokes a language poised between brutalist and organic, suggesting a zoomorphic form that has just darted out of the water.
In Brazil, where nature pulses with all its wild energy, the house designed for himself and his family by Paulo Mendes da Rocha, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2006, is an imposing Brutalist volume suspended above the ground and supported by powerful reinforced concrete pillars, evoking an introverted refuge poised between solidity and hospitality, protected by a blanket of lush vegetation.
A family of architects (mother, father and son) transformed their vacation home into an opportunity for technical experimentation, reflection on the theme of living and dialogue with the natural context in which it is located: a brutalist construction in exposed concrete, characterized by a modular system of frames and plates supported or cantilevered, suspended on the site almost defying gravity, floating in the pine forest like a "nest" among the trees: perhaps the idea of "home", in spite of the angular forms, the most tender there is.