Garden Tree House Design in Japan, Hironaka Ogawa & Associates (Tokyo)

Tree house with a difference: a young, sensitive architect found a wonderful solution to the following problem:

  The family needed to extend the house for their 35-year-old daughter. The only possible place was occupied by two beautiful trees. The decision was difficult because the family had many memories tied to those trees, which they had planted 35 years earlier and which had now grown so large and strong. Hironaka Ogawa decided to integrate the trees and give them their proper place: the trunks and branches were cut, dried, and returned exactly to their previous positions. They are now inside the house, becoming the main feature of the new extension. A wonderful idea, I think!