House Among Trees by Martin Fernandez de Lema and Nicolas Moreno Deutsch

Architects Martin Fernandez de Lema and Nicolas Moreno Deutsch have designed the House Among Trees project.

Completed in 2007, the 1,442 square foot cabin is located in Mar Azul, a small coastal settlement in Buenos Aires province, Argentina.

House Among Trees by Martin Fernandez de Lema and Nicolas Moreno Deutsch:

“The landscape of Mar Azul, a seaside resort near Villa Gesell and 400 km from Buenos Aires, is full of thick forest of different kinds of pine trees, acacias and black poplars as well as wide areas of dunes and virgin beaches.

The local construction code demands free space at both sides and limits the extraction of trees. The future owners – a couple that will change their boat for a house in the forest – requested that great care should be taken to preserve the natural conditions of the plot of land and to profit as much as possible from the natural qualities.

So, the house turned into a habitable dock, which emerges from the ground to see the landscape surrounding. It takes place on two levels, a level which emerges from the earth serves as a plinth for private use, which organizes the rooms and defines a horizontal plane on which rests a pavilion on the upper level, which includes the social program with the living, dining room, grill and terrace, organized in a central area of use, with sides of circulation and services.

Upstairs, one of these bands open circulation defines an access path between trees, from the street. A piece of concrete L-shaped opens this central area to the north, opening the forest view with large windows, and close to the southeast, with smaller windows, willing to visual height of a seated person.

The vertical support of this L is a wall of concrete formwork tables arranged horizontally to accentuate the dominant direction of the house, which is taking thickness and defines the circulation, support functions, linking both levels. The horizontal plane of the L is drilled, in the range of external access circulation, and traversed by trees, which seem to spring from the way of wooden boards treated pine.”