Casa Sima Bends Its Geometry to Keep Every Tree Standing

Not a single tree came down to build Casa Sima. Dosorozco placed the 150-square-meter house in an existing clearing on a wooded slope in Mexico's Sierra de Tapalpa, Jalisco, and let the positions of individual trees dictate the elongated plan, the terraces, and every point where the building touches the ground.

Creative director Guillermo R. Orozco said the studio treated the trees as an organizing framework. That constraint gives the project a convincing starting point, because a forest setting can easily become scenery for a building conceived independently of it. Here the geometry responds to what was already growing rather than demanding a cleared patch of its own.

What does the entrance sequence do?

A raised, stepped walkway climbs toward the house. At the entrance, a timber wall held within a steel frame creates what Orozco calls an "elevated courtyard" — open to the forest and suspended above the terrain. The threshold introduces enclosure before visitors reach any interior room, making the approach part of the architecture and giving arrival its own space without sealing it off.

Orozco explained the studio's interest in the progressive revelation of spaces, with light and landscape shaping how a building is encountered. That thinking explains why the entrance and terraces deserve as much attention as the enclosed rooms. Movement through the house is part of its design.

How do the materials answer the forest?

The timber receives a local oil-and-heat treatment that produces a rough, blackened surface. Stone and pale plaster complete the palette:

• Dark wood establishes depth
• Exposed stone gives walls a pronounced texture
• Plaster provides a quieter counterpoint

The studio intended these finishes to echo the surrounding forest's tones and textures.

How does 150 square meters hold so many positions?

Two intersecting rectilinear volumes organize the house. Downstairs, the living, dining, and kitchen area sits between stone walls beneath dark timber ceilings. Glazing opens toward a ground-level southern terrace and an elevated northern terrace. A study and bathroom share this floor, while two bedrooms upstairs access rooftop terraces. The arrangement offers several different relationships with the same sloping landscape.

Orozco described the home as a house for two people. The compact program matters less than the sequence it enables: approaching above the ground, entering through an open threshold, then occupying rooms that connect to terraces at different heights. Read this way, the modest floor area becomes a framework for varied encounters with the site. The forest remains close throughout, and the architecture gives each encounter a distinct setting.

For practitioners, Casa Sima demonstrates that a site constraint as simple as preserving existing trees can generate the plan, the section, and the arrival choreography at once — no clearing required.