House under the Tree
Imagine a beautiful piece of land amidst serene outskirts of mid-sized town where people from residential districts have their own remote gardens. The only things you can see through the surrounding chainlink fence are neighbouring gardens, dusty acces road and an old industrial hall that does not produce anymore. But what you see on your land is as soothing as the surrounding - the slighty overgrown lawn peppered with dandelions, small orchard with few apple trees and plum trees and healthy looking 40ft tall spruce that is looming over the place as a silent never-sleeping sentinel. It is a sad coincidence that the perfect spot for a new house is right where the spruce stands - the garden stays intact (and altogether in one piece) and the house shall be at least partly protected from a noise coming from the railroad track situated quite close. But the tree is still standing, towering all of his tree opponents and creating much of the genius loci of the site. It would be a pity if it had to make space for the house. And that is why we let him stay.
The house is designed as a timber structure. To avoid collision of roots with foundations the steel screwpile foundation was used instead of classical concrete strip foundation with foundation walls with a slab on top. On one hand - the roots will not cause any abrasion on stainless steel surafce of the screwpiles and on the other hand we reduce the damage from excavations to the root system of the spruce to absolut minimum.
location of site: Nitra, Slovakia
project: 2015
cooperation: Milan Csanda
