Living among the trees
Unique Cape Town residence was built in a valley’s treetops to connect owner with nature
Graham Paarman wanted a onebedroom hideaway resembling a tree house. What the architects in Cape Town, South Africa, designed makes him feel totally connected with nature.
The tree house, located in a clearing of eucalyptus and oak trees in Cape Town’s Constantia Valley, has four levels — each one is a square that encompasses a main living space, with half-circle pods extending from each. Steel columns resembling tree trunks pass through each level and, with branchlike arms, support the floor beams above.
The first level has a living room with an outdoor balcony, dining bay and staircase on the half-circle extensions, while the second level has a bedroom with a bathroom on that level’s extension. The third level has a rooftop deck; on the ground level is a plant room. The bay containing the staircase rises through all the levels to the roof deck. Residents enter via a suspended timber and steel ramp.
A double-height glass wall links the first and second levels and opens to the circular balcony with sliding, two-storey-high shutters. The home has no drapes or blinds, although the bathroom has opaque white-glass windows and curved sliding shutters.
Several types of steel were used, along with handmade brass connector pieces, spruce joists with Wedi- board insulation panels, western red Canadian cedar and laminated oak.
The 1,323-square-foot home took three years to design and build and was completed in 2016.
Pieter Malan, of Malan Vorster Architecture Interior Design in Cape Town, answers a few questions about Paarman’s tree house:
Did the trees on the property inspire your design?
The design concept focused on highlighting the experience of being amongst trees — specifically being in a small clearing surrounded with the verticality of trees. The home’s interior space is lined with man-made structural trees. So one inhabits a “clearing-in-the-trees,” even as you’re inside the tree house. The building raises the resident into the treetops to enjoy the magnificent views into the valley beyond.
The structural system was intentionally developed to enforce this idea . . . with branchlike arms carrying a steel ring that circumscribe the “tree” below it. The floor plates and roof planes are supported by the tree rings, arms and trunks. The building is wrapped in a filigree timber screen — reminiscent of leaves — to filter light and provide a layer of privacy.
How did you work with the positions of the sun and trees?
Our best sun-exposure direction is north, unlike in the Northern Hemisphere where its south, so in winter you get full sun into the spaces. By leaving the shutters on the west side open, you get late-afternoon sun. In the warm summer, one closes the shutters to keep out sun until it disappears behind the trees — which helps tremendously to filter harsh summer sun. The house is also kept by opening windows at the top of the stairwell and creating a stack effect with a flow of air cooling the interior. A closed, combustion-chamber fireplace in the lounge warms the whole interior since the levels are linked with double volumes.
What were your design challenges?
The structural system was developed using 3D models and full-scale mock-ups, since it had not been executed before — and especially because all metal structural components were laser-cut, bent and welded up to form the tree structures.
All the building components were made off-site and had to be hauled up a steep hill to the location, all the time aiming to minimize impact on the beautiful surrounding gardens.
To enforce the feeling of being in and amongst trees, we wanted the structure to hardly touch the ground. This, and the fact there are no ceiling voids, made the reticulation of services — plumbing, electrical, roof water — rather challenging. All services had to run either in the column cavities or in cavities formed between floor joists.