Life on the Tree House / LAAR

Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior PhotographyLife on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography, StairsLife on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography, StairsLife on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography, HandrailLife on the Tree House / LAAR - More Images+ 34

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Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Tamara Uribe

“Life on the Tree” is envisaged as a young girl’s dreams manifesto whose childhood was spent climbing trees and branches in an old masonry house. Years went by and the context changed, yet the trees and stone walls of those times still remain as witnesses of time, now standing as the main characters and accomplices of that dream.

Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography, Stairs
© Tamara Uribe
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Image 38 of 39
Plan - Ground floor
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography, Stairs
© Carlos Quintal

Located at the heart of Yaxkukul city in Yucatán, “Life on the Tree” is a retreat house specially designed at the exact same lot where the owner’s old family house once was, and which keeps today it’s vestiges. The project itself is conceived as a “solar”, a traditional country mayan house, which considers the open space also known as the patio, as the living universe of its occupants. It consists of a big open space where the remnants of the old house, the old “ramón” tree shadows and the longings of a once little girl, settle a dynamic brief departing of two new shadows: a floating concrete slab and a palm trees’ straw coating.

Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Carlos Quintal
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Image 37 of 39
Plan - 1st floor
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography
© Diego Lizama

At the ground level, an open plan layout is accomplished, where nature conducts the orchestra, putting order and consistently transforming the space around the main access. This blue color patio acts as a memoir of the original floor tiling of the house, it´s also enclosed by the masonry walls’ old trace which leads the stair’s blueprint, whose leading appears to be the treetops, yet flowing into a terrace roofed by another five “ramón” treetops.

Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Tamara Uribe
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography, Handrail
© Diego Lizama
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Tamara Uribe
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Diego Lizama

The private area, which provides its name to the project, is serenely suspended as a thick, yet translucent volume between the branches of five existing old “ramón” trees located on the patio, floating above the masonry old wall remnants that used to contain the old family house, creating a heterochronic scenario, as in a dream, where both universes and time coexist in parallel.

Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Tamara Uribe
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Image 32 of 39
Section D-D
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Tamara Uribe
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography
© Diego Lizama

On the second floor, a translucent space is unveiled, which leads the inhabitant through the wooden lattices and the structural simplicity, creating permeability control from the public spaces to the private ones, which allows to glimpse the outdoor context and turning the house into a viewing platform. The heart of this space is a “ramón” tree, whose only presence transforms the perspective, since it gives its intimacy away, making their pinnacles approachable, creating a symbiotic relationship with the human being since they’re both protagonists that shelter the space.

Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography, Bedroom
© Tamara Uribe
Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Interior Photography, Bedroom, Table, Chair
© Tamara Uribe

Natural elements are enhanced, giving a sense of a warm shelter: the green roofs provided by the treetops and the wood cocooning, act together as a filter, since they control the solar beams and also allow constant and natural ventilation, that goes throughout the inhabitable spaces, and a lighting set inside the house that changes in order to the daytime, making it easier to enjoy the natural environment as an essential factor of the ludic experience.

Life on the Tree House / LAAR - Exterior Photography
© Carlos Quintal

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About this office
Cite: "Life on the Tree House / LAAR" [Casa en el Árbol / LAAR] 17 May 2021. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/961700/life-on-the-tree-house-laar> ISSN 0719-8884

© Tamara Uribe

树上小屋 / LAAR

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