Dosorozco builds Casa Sima around existing trees in Jalisco forest

A 150-square-metre house in the forests of Sierra de Tapalpa, Jalisco, was designed around a single constraint: no existing tree would be removed. Architecture studio Dosorozco named the result Casa Sima, and the trees, it turns out, did most of the planning.

The dwelling occupies a sloping forest site with panoramic views toward distant mountains. Its elongated plan and blocky volumes align with the contours of an existing clearing, because Dosorozco ruled out both excavation and tree removal from the start.

"Casa Sima started with something very simple, the place already had its own order before we arrived," the studio's creative director Guillermo R Orozco told Dezeen.

"One of the first decisions we made was that no existing trees would be removed. That sounds simple, but it affected almost every decision that came after," he explained.

"Their position affects the geometry of the house, the views, the shadows, the terraces and even the points where the building can touch the ground."

How do you enter a house without touching the ground?

You climb. Casa Sima is accessed via a stepped walkway elevated above the forest floor, running from the base of the slope up to the rectilinear volumes perched at the top.

At the threshold sits what Orozco calls an "elevated courtyard": a timber wall carried on a steel frame, positioned above the walkway. The timber received a local finishing treatment that uses oil and heat to weatherproof the surface, producing a rough, blackened finish intended to blend with the surrounding trunks.

"There is a brief moment there where you are not really outside anymore, but you are not inside either," Orozco explained. "You become aware of the ground below you, the structure around and above you, and the trees beyond it."

"It is suspended above the terrain, framed by the structure and open to the forest, so it works almost like a vestibule without ever becoming a conventional room."

What's inside the two volumes?

The living spaces sit within two intersecting, rectilinear volumes. The ground floor holds a large living, dining and kitchen space flanked by two exposed stone walls, plus a study and a bathroom. Dark timber ceilings run overhead, and fully glazed walls open onto two distinct terraces — one at ground level to the south, one elevated to the north.

Above, the central cubic volume contains two bedrooms lined in timber and plaster, both with access to rooftop terraces. The material palette, completed with pale plaster, was chosen to echo the textures and tones of the surrounding forest.

"The house is compact, but it doesn't really feel compact when you are inside it," said Orozco. "The rotation between floors, the terraces, the diagonal views and the constant relationship with the exterior make the spaces feel much more open."

Casa Sima joins a run of Mexican forest homes trading square metres for site discipline. Dezeen recently featured a lime-rendered house beside a wooded hillside in Cristóbal de las Casas by local studio Colar, and a Valle de Bravo holiday home by Chain + Siman built as a row of gabled forms. Dosorozco's version suggests the strongest layout tool on a wooded slope isn't the plan at all — it's the trees you agreed not to cut.