Daniel Fromer Threads a Timber House Through the Almond, Palm and Coconut Trees of Southern Bahia

Nana House sits on a densely planted plot in Santo André, a small coastal settlement in southern Bahia, Brazil. Daniel Fromer completed it in 2022 with collaborators Julia Meirelles, Yane Custódio and Angela Viana, and Mariana Kraemer designed the interiors. The brief, as the architect frames it, was integration with the landscape. That phrase appears in almost every project description written for a tropical site, so it only means something if the building shows it.

Here the building does show it, and the evidence is the plan rather than the finishes. The existing almond, palm and coconut trees were treated as fixed points, and the house was laid out in the gaps between them. The result is a cluster of separate gabled timber volumes linked by boardwalks, with each one placed to suit a stand of trees and a specific use. We think the more interesting story is how much of the design comes from what the architect chose not to remove.

Letting the Trees Draw the Plan

The boardwalks tell you how the site works. Plank paths bend around trunks and planting beds instead of cutting straight lines between doors, so the trip from one pavilion to another passes palms and banks of orange heliconia. Walking between rooms becomes part of how you experience the house, which is the real benefit of breaking a program into pieces.

This approach has a cost. Separate volumes mean more roofs, more envelope and more exposure to rain when you cross the site. In a warm climate with generous outdoor space, Fromer seems to judge that trade worth making, and the photographs support him. The low thatched and shingled roofs stay under the canopy instead of competing with it.

Raised Timber Volumes on a Weathered Deck

The main two-storey block stands on posts, with a railed balcony wrapping its upper floor and plank shutters that can close it off completely. Raising the volume keeps it clear of damp ground and leaves the root zones beneath mostly untouched. It also gives the upper rooms a view across the garden instead of into the nearest shrub.

The open stair under the house is a small detail we like. It rises past a carved post and through tall grasses, so even the climb to the bedrooms happens outdoors. The cladding has already turned silver in places, and the design seems to welcome that rather than fight it.

A Pool That Reads as a Horizon Line

The pool is long, narrow and flush with a wide timber deck. It acts less like a leisure object and more like a datum, a flat band of water that reflects the palms and gives the scattered pavilions a common edge to face. With the house on one side and a thatched pavilion beyond, the pool holds the composition together in a way the separate buildings could not manage on their own.

The restraint shows in what is missing. You will not find a sculpted edge, feature tiling or lighting spectacle. The deck and the water carry the space, and two lounge chairs are enough furniture.

Round Logs, Rough Boards and Woven Cane

The roofs rest on round pole rafters left in their natural form rather than milled square. Under the dining pavilion they form a visible rhythm above a long table, and in the deck corner they meet vertical board walls used for something as ordinary as hanging straw hats. This is the vocabulary of rural Bahian building, applied with care instead of quoted as a style.

Fromer's portfolio is often described as pairing lesser-known craft techniques with plain, rational solutions. Nana House fits that description. The materials are easy to read and you can see how the pieces join, and the craft shows in how they come together, not in ornament.

Rooms That Open Onto the Garden

Indoors, the living room keeps the log roof frame exposed and opens on several sides through glazed walls to the planting outside. Mariana Kraemer's interior is quiet: a green sofa, woven stools and little else. That suits a room whose main view is the garden.

The veranda, with its woven cane ceiling, plank shutters and a hammock in the leaf shadows, may be the most honest room in the project. It sits between inside and outside, and that in-between condition is what this kind of house is for.

Plans and Drawings

The site plans show the real scale of the operation. A curving road links a pond, a tennis court and several roofed blocks spread among the existing trees, with a river along one edge. The building footprints sit inside the canopy instead of in a cleared zone, which supports the claim that the trees set the layout.

The elevations and sections confirm a consistent kit. Each block uses a pitched gable and deep eaves, and several are lifted on piles or stilts. The long pavilion opens through glazed sliding panels, the guest block repeats glazed door bays behind timber-clad ends, and the two-storey block adds its wraparound balcony and exterior stair.

The caretaker house and the service block get the same gabled roofs and vertical board cladding as the main buildings. Staff and support spaces are not hidden in a cheaper language, and that consistency helps the whole compound read as one place.

Why This Project Matters

Much of what gets built along Brazil's coast clears the site first and plants palms afterward. Nana House reverses that order. By treating mature almond, palm and coconut trees as constraints that cannot move, Fromer arrives at a dispersed, low plan that would be hard to invent on an empty lot. The building borrows its shade and much of its identity from vegetation that was already there.

The lesson for designers is not about timber or thatch. It is about which decisions you make first. Fix the landscape before you fix the program and the architecture can become modest, because the site already does a lot of the work. Nana House shows that this kind of restraint can produce a richer place to live, not a reduced one.

Nana House by Daniel Fromer, with collaborators Julia Meirelles, Yane Custódio and Angela Viana, and interior design by Mariana Kraemer. Santo André, Bahia, Brazil. Completed 2022. Photography by Beto Riginik.

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