When land is developed, the quickest option is usually to clear everything on it. Mature trees are felled for roads, homes and car parks, sometimes for projects that are later delayed or abandoned. Yet a tree that took fifty or a hundred years to grow cannot be replaced by planting a sapling afterwards: its shade, its habitat for birds and insects, and the character it gives a place take generations to return.
The projects below took the harder route. Some are famous works by award-winning architects, others are small decisions by ordinary owners, and one is a concept design that has not yet been built. Each started from the same question: what if the tree stays and the building adapts? For each one we explain who designed it and what the photo shows, and where popular captions got the facts wrong, we say so.
The aerial photo above, of a road bending around a single tree in a dry landscape, has been shared for years as a symbol of that idea. Its exact location has not been confirmed, but the image makes the point well: sometimes a detour costs very little.
Two of the projects featured below: a concept for a glass house wrapped around a living fir tree, and the tree-covered 25 Verde apartment building in Turin.
This saying is often labelled an "ancient Native American proverb", but research by Quote Investigator found no evidence for that. The earliest close match is from the American writer Wendell Berry in 1971, and Australian environment minister Moses Henry Cass used the familiar "borrowed from our children" wording in a 1974 speech.
Why designing around trees is worth the effort
Keeping a mature tree is not only sentimental. A large tree shades walls and windows in summer, cooling a building and the street outside. Its roots hold soil together and soak up rainwater, and its canopy supports far more wildlife than a newly planted one can. For residents, being able to see greenery from a window is widely linked with lower stress and a better mood.
Building around a tree does add work. Architects need to protect the roots during construction, leave room for the trunk to thicken and sway, and keep water and pests out where a trunk passes through a roof or wall. The examples below show the many ways designers have solved those problems.
Asia: a kindergarten annex, a tea house and a glass tower
1. Ring Around a Tree, Tokyo, Japan
Designed by Tezuka Architects, the practice of Takaharu and Yui Tezuka, this small building was completed in 2011 and is widely described as an annex to the firm's celebrated Fuji Kindergarten in Tokyo. Its floors and stairs spiral around a large existing tree, so children climb, read and play among its branches. It received a 2013 commendation from the Architectural Institute of Japan.
2. The Tea House, Shanghai, China
Archi-Union Architects, led by Philip F. Yuan, built this two-storey tea room and library in the yard behind their own studio in Shanghai's Yangpu District between 2010 and 2011. A triangular balcony on the upper floor reaches out to wrap around the branches of a tree that was already on the site, and a small inner courtyard frames views of it from the reading room. The roof reuses material from an old warehouse that had collapsed there.
3. Tree in the House, Kazakhstan (concept)
This glass cylinder with four ring-shaped floors and a spiral staircase wrapping a tall fir was designed by Aibek Almassov of A.Masow Architects in Almaty. It is often shared as a real home, but it is a 2013 concept shown in renderings, not a finished building. Dezeen reported in 2016 that an investor making transparent solar glass was interested in it.
Small decisions: a fence and an apartment block
4. The tree and the fence
Not every example needs an architect. Here the owner of a timber fence simply let a forked trunk pass through it, building the boards around the tree instead of cutting it. The photo was shared on Imgur, and its location is not known. It is a reminder that respecting a tree can be as simple as a little extra carpentry.
5. An apartment building in Izmir, Turkey
This residential block in Izmir appears to have been built with a mature tree rising through the openings in its balconies, floor after floor. The photo spread via Reddit, and we could not confirm the address or the story behind it. Leaving gaps around a trunk like this lets the tree keep growing, though it needs regular care to stop branches damaging the structure.
Homes in the woods
6. A private residence in West Virginia
Credited to Travis Price Architects, this wood-lined living space lets several slender tree trunks rise through the room and out through glazed openings in the roof. Floor-to-ceiling glass makes the forest outside feel part of the interior. It shows that even small trees can be kept when a house is set carefully into a wooded site.
7. A treehouse retreat in Poland
Often captioned as "apartments in Poland", the photo actually shows a raised timber cabin among tall pine trunks, reached by an open staircase. It is credited to Piotr Fuora and the W Drzewach ("In the Trees") project. Lifting a building on posts like this keeps the forest floor and roots largely undisturbed.
8. Casa Vogue, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In this bright interior, shared under the name Casa Vogue, a large tree grows from a planted bed in the middle of the living area and rises through a round opening in the concrete roof. Light pours down the trunk, and the rest of the room is arranged around it. The tree becomes the centrepiece that most homes would give to a fireplace or a sculpture.
9. A private residence in Austin, Texas
This timber-clad home, credited to Matt Fajkus Architecture, is arranged so that its wings frame a courtyard around a mature tree. Central Texas is hot, and a broad canopy like this cools outdoor space and the walls around it. The tree also gives the courtyard a sense of shelter and privacy.
Statement buildings: city and countryside
10. 25 Verde, Turin, Italy
Architect Luciano Pia's 25 Verde, completed in 2012, is a five-storey block of 63 apartments wrapped in roughly 150 trees growing in planters on its terraces, with more in a green inner courtyard. Weathering-steel supports shaped like trunks hold up the balconies. The greenery helps shade the flats and buffers residents from traffic noise and dust, and the building predates Milan's better-known Bosco Verticale towers.
11. A private residence in Los Angeles, California
In this glass-walled Los Angeles home, photographed by Ethan Pines for the New York Times, a tree trunk rises right through the living space and out of the roof. Mid-century modern houses in Southern California often blur indoors and outdoors, and this one takes the idea literally. Keeping the tree also means keeping its shade over the house.
12. Casa Corallo, Guatemala
Casa Corallo, by the Guatemalan studio Paz Arquitectura, was designed around the trees already on its site. Inside, trunks stand among wood, stone and glass, rising through openings in the ceiling. The result feels less like a house in a forest than a house that has grown with one.
Building near a tree without killing it
If you are planning an extension, a fence or a new home near a mature tree, a few principles make the difference:
- Protect the roots. Most of a tree's roots lie in the top half-metre of soil and spread at least as wide as the canopy. Fence off that area during building so machines and stored materials do not crush it.
- Bring in an arborist early. A tree specialist can say whether a tree is healthy enough to keep and how much space it needs.
- Leave room to grow. Trunks thicken and move in wind. Openings in roofs, decks or fences need flexible seals or generous gaps.
- Check local rules. Many towns protect large or old trees, and permission may be needed before any work near them.
- Think about maintenance. Leaves in gutters, branches near glass and roots near pipes all need planning, but none of them is a reason to fell a healthy tree.
What these projects have in common
From a Tokyo kindergarten to a garden fence, every example here began by treating the tree as part of the site, not an obstacle on it. Some solutions are elaborate and expensive, others cost only a few extra hours of work. Together they show that keeping nature in place is usually a question of willingness more than budget.
Sources: Wikipedia: Takaharu Tezuka; Dezeen: Tea House by Archi-Union (2012); Dezeen: Tree in the House by A.Masow Architects (2016); Domus: 25 Verde, Turin; Colossal: 25 Verde (2015); Quote Investigator: We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. Photo credits: Tezuka Architects, Archi-Union, A.Masow Architects, Imgur user smallstone, Reddit user smartforever, Travis Price Architects, Piotr Fuora / W Drzewach, Architectism, Matt Fajkus Architecture, Beppe Giardino / ArchDaily, Ethan Pines / New York Times, Paz Arquitectura. Earlier shared via Diply and The Mind Unleashed.
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