It’s funny to think that as a species we all started off on all fours and living in trees! These days, some of us are taking to the tree line once more in an attempt to get back to our roots and to find the solution to the worlds renewable energy problems.
Here we look at several architectural gems which allow people to live like the monkeys up in the trees!
1. The Dome. This remarkable construction is made from natural pine and cork and is found in an eco village in Spain. There’s not too much space, but you would feel pretty good about yourself climbing out of this every day! The Dome is almost implausibly perched atop an olive tree, but we are told that the structure is sound!
2. The Treehouse, Alnwick Gardens. This one is actually an example from Great Britain! This tree house is one of the largest in the world and contains a 120 seat restaurant, some shops and two children’s classrooms! Looking at the picture it is hard to believe that all of this goes on inside!
3. The Tsala Treetop Lodge. This beautiful place is in South Africa and the idea here is not sustainability – it is luxury! This marvel is built from stone and glass with stunning views across the forest parapet. The whole thing is constructed from just stone and glass and is a common venue for romantic holidays and honeymoons.
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4. The Cabanes en l’air. This is a new offering from The Cabanes en l’air, a French tree house builder in France. This one is found in the forests of Sologne and is available to rent! This treehouse was created by a company renowned the world over for their wonderful tree line structures and it is no wonder that people travel from all over the world to stay in one of these things!
5. The Hapuku Lodge tree house is a fantastic example of a modern home in the least modern of locations! These New Zealand rental homes are perfect for honeymoons. They have a wonderful location whereby if you are not admiring the view of the forest on one side, you will be admiring the view of the ocean on the other!
6. Free Spirit Spheres are a bit of a cheat because they can be suspended from almost anything, but it gets inclusion because it just looks so cool! The Free spirit spheres are very flexible and you can either hang them from a tree or you can place them in cradles on the ground, but we think they are much more fun up in the air!
7. Baumraum. German company Baumraum is a great builder of these homes in the sky. Their aim is to create homes that blend into their natural environment and we think they have excelled themselves with this example. Even better is the fact that you can have this German country design and build a treehouse for you – as long as you have the garden for it!
8. Tree Restaurant. New Zealand seems to be the masters of treehouses, and this is actually an example of one of their tree restaurants! Well, if everyone is having houses in the tree lines, where are they going to eat?! As you can see from the photo there is a gradual pathway leading up to the restaurant, so even those with a bit of a fear of heights should be able to make their way up to this one!
We hope that these amazing tree houses have inspired you to think about the incredible things that are possible when architects mind themselves to really push the boundaries of what we can do with houses.
With all the damage that we are doing to this earth I am not sure how much longer it will go forward, I think we should do more to help and stop consuming all its natural resources.
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