Forget treehouses as you once knew them – plywood forts for kids bolted into trunks and branches. The new treehouse concept is all about taking the comforts of home (cooking, Facebooking, reclining) to new, sustainable heights. And look, Ma, no splinters!
Treehouses still bring out the kid in many grown ups, like Andreas Wenning, the design genius behind Baumraum Design in Bremen, Germany. His firm, which combines his own architect vision with landscaper understanding, has carved out modern tree homes in Germany, Austria and Brazil, including the extraordinary nests above.
“A treehouse is sort of a modern lifestyle product which respects and fits into nature,” Wenning tells me. “We work with tree experts who help us find the best solution to connect the treehouse with the tree without cutting or damaging the tree anywhere.”
In addition to its own projects, Baumraum (which means tree space) ships prefab elements to customers who want to design their own treehouses. They can assemble the structure between two or several suitable trees in their yards. Steel cables raise the structure in the air and anchor it to the land, but the foundation is largely dictated by the type of tree being used.
A Pear tree, for example, cannot bear the complete weight of a treehouse so part of the construction is propped up on two slanting supports, such as with this Pear treehouse installed in Heilbronn (below). It features a convenient staircase that leads up through a fork in the branches to a slanting terrace. From the perch, the owner has an undisturbed view of a side valley with vineyards. Small steps lead up to a cabin on the next level. Like all of Baumraum’s projects, this treehouse is fitted with glazing on all sides and features a large dormer window and sunscreens for the south facing side.
What’s the biggest challenge to living in a space like this? “It provides a rather small, concentrated space in nature which brings people intensely to the natural environment,” he explains. “It is a space for romantic, quietness and concentration and common space with friends and family. You are very close to nature and it feels different.”
While Baumraum has whittled a niche in the modern treehouse market, other architects are going even more out on a limb to lift up our eco lifestyle. Free Spirit Spheres of Canada makes wooden orbs to basically string in tall trees, such as the forest areas of Vancouver Island.
According to the inventor and maker, Tom Chudleigh, the spherical tree house concept borrows heavily from sailboat construction and rigging practices. “Wooden spheres are built much like a cedar strip canoe or kayak,” he explains, “and suspension points are similar to the chain plate attachments on a sailboat.” The stairways hang from a tree just like a sailboat shroud hangs from a mast. The nut like sphere attaches to a web of rope that connects to the strong points of trees, using the forest as its foundation.
The ladder staircase and earthy interior may be geared more for the Swiss Family Robinson than the average naturalist. “My personal goal is to produce 10 to 15 spheres and hang them all in a large area of old growth forest…a spiritual retreat for me and whoever else is interested,” says the inventor.
Perhaps a little more upscale but just as intrinsically organic, are the treehouse dwellings of Romero Studios, such as the Five Oaks House commissioned by Donna Karan in Chestnut Village outside New York City (below).
Adjacent to a Waldorf school and organic farm, the designer says the owners love the solitude and connection with nature offered by the heightened surroundings, including a stunning eyrie for writing and practicing yoga poses.
Whether you’re housing a top designer or a Partridge family in a pear tree, these homes nestled in the trees are here to stay..and not sway. The diversity in the growing treehouse industry has delivered spaces that are wheelchair-friendly, weather-worthy and resource sensitive.
“We have to develop a new consciousness in respecting and protecting our natural environment,” figures Wenning. “Architects have many possibilities to help us realize that aim.”
The sustainable treehouse is among those many possibilities, and gives a fresh perspective to the proverbial tree of life.