October 1, 2025

Far from trying to dominate the landscape, today’s architects are working in partnership with the natural world to reflect and enhance its beauty

Humans have an innate tendency to romanticize our interactions with nature but, throughout history, the relationship has been complex, often even veering towards reckless exploitation. While we like to think of the past as a time when we, as a species, were more in touch with the natural world, the truth is that nature’s power and apparently random fury has often made us turn away from it.

Doolittle House in Joshua Tree, California by Kendrick Bangs Kellogg. Image: Elizabeth Daniels. Banner image: Anonym Studio’s Baan Pridi apartment block in Bangkok. Dof Skyground / ANOYM Studio

In fact, so terrifying were some natural panoramas that, until quite recently, they were avoided altogether. Until the late 18th century, for example, Europeans built their homes facing away from the sea—who wanted a view that was so full of danger, a graveyard for many living in coastal communities? Likewise, woodland that could not be felled provided a dark unknown, the backdrop of much folklore about the evil contained within. Even landscapes that we would now consider conventionally beautiful and that have inspired fine art had their detractors. The great 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson described the Scottish Highlands, now acknowledged as one of the United Kingdom’s most glorious natural environments, thus:

“They exhibit very little variety, being almost wholly covered with dark heath, and even that seems to be checked in its growth. What is not heath is nakedness, a little diversified by now and then a stream rushing down the steep. An eye accustomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests, is astonished and repelled by this wide extent of hopeless sterility. The appearance is that of matter incapable of form or usefulness, dismissed by Nature from her care, and disinherited of her favors, left in its original elemental state, or quickened only with one sullen power of useless vegetation.”

A fine example of organic architecture, Doolittle House blends into its desert landscape, taking its cue from the rocky terrain. Image: Anthony Cotsifas / Art Partner Licensing / Trunk Archive

The European attitude—which spread to the New World—was that nature, if it were not to be dominated and exploited, should at least be controlled. Wherever possible, land must be made useful through agriculture or forestry. For those with wealth, nature could always be improved upon. France was famous for its rigidly formal gardens and exported its designs and influence across Europe so that, for much of the early modern period, anyone aspiring to taste had a completely symmetrical layout of precisely clipped and placed planting.

This inflexible view of a desirable landscape gave way, in the United Kingdom, to designers such as Lancelot “Capability” Brown and Humphry Repton. They wrangled with the landscape they were given to construct new lakes, hills, and politely contained woods, creating a more harmonious—if equally synthetic—version of nature. Repton’s first rule of design was that a garden “must display the natural beauties and hide the defects of every situation.” Nature itself was never deemed be perfect on its own terms.

Jungle House in Guarujá, Brazil, envisioned by studio mk27, disappears into the rainforest that surrounds it. Image: Studio MK27 / Fernando Guerra / Isabel Duprat

Above all, gardens were a backdrop to the main event: the house. A house with its own land ought to be the focus of it; a house with a landscape should stand proud from it, as if to imply that its owner was king of all he surveyed. But has the 21st century ushered in a new aesthetic that allows nature to be more, well, natural? Is the ultimate status symbol not how subservient natural surroundings are to a home, but how integrated a home is to its environment? After all, one of the most talked-about English country homes in recent years is not grand Chatsworth or royal Highgrove, but Knepp in West Sussex, which has given over the majority of its 3,500 acres (1,416 ha) to rewilding.

What started as a faintly hippie concept—that we should do as little harm to the natural world as possible—has grown over the past few decades in line with the rise of environmentalism and a fear that humans have caused irreparable damage to the planet. Hard standing and concrete have given way to wood cladding and natural stone. The use of glass has made homes more transparent and less bulky in the landscape. Boiler systems are out; non-fossil-fuel alternatives are in; there is gray-water recycling; owners boast about their advanced, NASA-developed insulation systems. Where once swimming in anything but chlorinated water was deemed horrifying, wild swimming is all the rage, and there is nothing more enviable than your own backyard swimming pond.

But the most striking change is the lack of formality around the homes. Rather than building a wall marking a boundary and containing a man-made landscape, architects are now working with landscapers to create a seamless flow from the natural realm to the building itself. Planting may be more purposeful, but it will still mimic the forest or pastures around it. If trees need to be removed to make way for constructions, new ones will be planted.

Tree House Constantia in Cape Town, South Africa, created by Malan Vorster Architecture Interior Design. Image: Adam Letch / Malan Vorster Architecture

“There’s definitely a trend to make the house fit into the environment,” says Sean Averill of PureWest Christie’s International Real Estate in Montana. “We’re seeing developments spread out much more; they want their own space. The big, multigenerational houses that were built 10 years ago, people don’t want them any more.”

He is currently marketing a perfect example of this: a four-bedroom, luxury cabin in the forest, close to the town of Whitefish. Partly built on stilts to accommodate the plot’s slope, the striking geometry of the property is offset by its lightness, and the fact that it is surrounded by pines that soar up far above it. Its scale and its lack of pretension—the residence is clad inside and out with wood rather than showier, imported materials—mean that the building packs a punch without overwhelming its surroundings.

“A lot of higher-end developments are requiring that materials are natural,” says Averill. “It’s more expensive, but it’s what that clientele wants. A lot of the nicer developments want to preserve the land around them.”

In Florida, there is a similar trend towards blending the convenience of everyday life with nature. “We have a lot of state parks here, which movements like New Urbanism [which develops planned communities] connect to,” says Jacob Watkins of Christie’s International Real Estate Emerald Coast. “It means people within these communities are close to nature and enjoy the way it has been preserved.”

Is this another manifestation of stealth wealth? Are buyers accessorizing their lives with relatively humble homes that sit well in nature and are high quality without screaming extravagance? A smaller home with a connection to nature sends a certain message.

A case in point is the property being marketed by R365 Christie’s International Real Estate on the outskirts of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Set in 27 acres (11 ha), the house has been built on a private lake. Set low—mirroring the famously flat landscape—and with two of its sides completely made of glass, it appears to float on the water. Surrounded by a weathered deck, it resembles a luxurious boathouse. Its windows make the most of the scenery around it and, leaving the focus on the view’s seasonal changes, the interiors are simple, almost minimalist.

House of the Big Arch in the Bushveld nature reserve, South Africa, by the Frankie Pappas architecture collective. Image: Frankie Pappas

The idea of watching nature from the comfort of your own home, as if it were a giant bird hide, is a tempting one. At Playa Grande in Costa Rica—a country that has become synonymous with all things eco—the vegetation around one of the houses being sold by Christie’s International Real Estate Costa Rica within the Las Ventanas gated community has all but worked its way into the building. Trees and palms appear almost to grow through the house, and nibble at the sides of its balconies, decks, and pool. Not only do the owners get spectacular outlooks onto the forest, but the trees also guarantee absolute privacy.

Evridiki Palaiologou of Ploumis Sotiropoulos Real Estate Christie’s International Real Estate in Athens accepts that properties that blend into their surroundings are rare in Greece. However, she is selling a villa on Mount Pelion on the eastern mainland that has been built around a natural waterfall. With its farmhouse-style main house and rustic gardens, the waterfall gives the property a sense of timelessness that belies the fact the estate was built only 25 years ago. “Houses like this are quite unusual here,” she says. “Perhaps that will change.”

Maybe it will. It would be wonderful to imagine a world in which our most beautiful homes are in conversation with their settings rather than shouting them down.

Writer’s bio: Gela Pertusini was property editor of The Daily Telegraph and has written for The Times, The Guardian, and The Independent