Too light to touch the ground: Nature is not the background for modernist architecture, but its context – important enough to become your most valuable inspiration.
This thesis of Mobius Architekci is evidenced by the latest project by Przemek Olczyk. The levitating organic structure is to sit on pillars that will resemble pines with time, and the leitmotif will be a circle, well known from the trunk cross-section. TreeHouse teaches us a new perspective on nature and architecture. It will settle among old trees in the central part of Poland. – I like it when the building relates to the surroundings, it greatly inspires – says Przemek Olczyk, the author of the project from the Przemek Olczyk Mobius Architekci studio.
The first floor will hang in the forest, taking the form of a circle cut from the trunk. It will give the impression that it is not touching the ground because it rests on irregularly positioned supports. “We will use steel corten poles, which after corrosion will look like pine bark” describes Olczyk. The round slice of the trunk in the architect’s vision is supposed to resemble an organic structure, it is like a wooden box, too light to fall down to the undergrowth. Settling high among the trees, it will reveal to the residents an interesting perspective and an extraordinary view of the forest, but also of the architecture of the house itself.
To hang such a structure on irregularly spaced ‘trunks’ is the biggest challenge of this project. – This is an unusual solution, architecturally and structurally complicated – explains Olczyk. Only the ground floor of the building will be clearly integrated with the ground. However, it is given lightness by the oblique line of the façade and the horizontal wall of glazing in the half-open residential part. Its extension will be an empty panoramic space. Topped only with a flat roof, it will create the perfect framework for the landscape. Elsewhere, the atrium will extend upward, to a floor suspended like a floating saucer, and then up to the treetops. This is where the real opening to nature will occur. The wooden façade, stone, and glass will make the building blend in smoothly with the surroundings.
The light colors of the block will be a delicate accent against the background of the forest colors, but the darker poles are no longer distinguishable from tree trunks. The main entrance is a door hidden in vertical wooden profiles. A circular niche in which they will disappear is proof of a spectacular play with geometry in architecture. The circle – inspired by the cross-section of a tree trunk – is the leitmotif of the project. Segments of a circle and circles of various sizes travel from the storey suspended at the height of the floor, through the atrium, to the interior, which is closely integrated with the body. The staircase and the elevator hidden in a mirrored housing correspond with it. Circles appear in the kitchen, bathroom and wardrobe elements. – It is not an intrusive theme, rather organic and functional – assures Olczyk.
