‘No trees were harmed in building this house’ – just this sign should hang on a wall of a guest house in the forest of Daisen piedmont in Japan. The thing is that the house site is situated in the midst of beautiful cherry and pine trees, so the architects from K2 Design strove to keep these trees untouched. Coexisting with the forest became a key principle for the design. Following this principle, they arranged several volumes, which look like a group of small separate houses, in gaps among the trunks and connected them with short passages.
Another feature of the project is that the house is raised off the ground on pillars. This solution not only prevents snowdrifts in winter when heavy snowfalls are possible but also reduces moisture and heat from the ground penetrating the floors in summer.