Treehouse Building Workshop

Treehouse Building Workshop

MAKE magazine has an online piece in their blog about an upcoming tree house building workshop.

"We will be sponsoring a treehouse building workshop in Santa Cruz, CA (about an hour south of San Francisco) on May 5,6 and 7th. The world famous treehouse builder and innovator Michael Garnier will be teaching the workshop. He owns Treesort treehouse resort in Takilma, OR and has built a treehouse for the Discovery Channel." - Link.

The picture, also in the MAKE piece, is of a deck project built upon a big old-growth redwood stump - Link.

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Free Spirit Spheres

Free Spirit Spheres

Here is a very cool site that shows the unique treehouse design of a builder here in BC. Tom Chudleigh makes spherical homes that can be suspended between a couple of trees with minimum impact on the surroundings.

There are two models, the Eve and Eryn, and are made from yellow cedar or fibergless. He finishes the inside to include upholstery, bed, table, heater, fridge, and kitchen area. No bathroom inside, but a nearby self compositing toilet would be a perfect compliment.

My poking around his site gives me the sense that Tom is a craftsman. And, his concept makes me think of a small camper, or travel trailer, plucked from the road way by a giant, squished into a ball, and nestled in some large nearby trees. Kind of like an Orange Peel trailer taken to a new level (pardon the pun).

I think this is a wonderful way to lodge one's self in the woods with a minimum impact. The stairs and house are easily removable in about a day and the only trace is the path leading to the location. Tom has been selling Free Spirit Spheres and wants to create a small community of 15 or so in the woods somewhere. Check out the video piece from Discovery Channel: Video

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Mobile Orange Peel House

Mobile Orange Peel House

A small and cheap mobile shelter presented in an article describing a Popular Mechanics story from 1955. This invention was designed by a firm in Germany to be erected in about 15 minutes by one person.

I'm wondering if the idea has potential for stringing in a tree, or three, for a temporary shelter off the ground. Mabey even a small community of them could occupy a natural grove without the problems associated with tent pads.

I am amazed at the effects camp sites have on a natural setting. Uncontrolled spaces inevitably get trampled and the ground cleared for campers and tents. In controlled sites, the construction of roads and official camping 'pads' mean gravel parking lots spread throughout the forest floor.

I think it would be a great means of ecotourism to have basic mobile shelters like this that could be hung easily in trees. The different atmosphere along would be a attraction to campers.

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Treefort Sculpture

Treefort Sculpture

Sculpture: Living out on a Limb by Trevor Henderson.

View original posting here.

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Avant-Garde and Sustainable on the Cheap

Avant-Garde and Sustainable on the Cheap

Another Spanish project by architect Santiago Cirugeda aims to create a community of simple treehouse/cliffhouse/stilthouse (kind of blends elements from all of these) structures for young people.

The idea is to provide a sustainable and environmental housing option to youth at an affordable price. This could be the first step in transforming social expectations about shelter requirements necessary for a basic standard of living.

The homes are designed to integrate with the landscape rather than dominate it. Each is 42 sq metres interior space plus about 20 sq metres of terrace. It strikes me as coincidental that these proportions are roughly the same as the cliff houses of Mesa Verde including the porch. We seem to have an archetypal attachment to this kind of space.

The city of Basauri is now considering the design as a place for young people to live. The proposal is for 35 wooden versions to be built in a natural setting around the Basozelai area for about 200 euros each. People may buy one, live in it up to 5 years, and have up to half of the money returned to them at the end of their stay.

As a treehouse aficionado, this type of idea would be perfect in a forest area on the edge of town. The canopy and natural terrain could provide additional meta shelter from the elements (cool in summer and protection from wind, snow, and rain) as well as promote the idea of environmentally symbiotic lifestyle options for youth -- and an alternative to the wage slave lifestyle of modern urban rental housing.

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Mesa Verde -- Cliffhouse by Design

Mesa Verde -- Cliffhouse by Design

I found a post about the cliff houses of Mesa Verde in Colorado today. This is an amazing example of people building shelters within a larger natural structure.

There are about 150 rooms, and a dozen meeting areas, built into and underneath the rock cliff. The construction happened gradually throughout the first century A.D. and was home to approximately 100 people until sometime in the 13th century.

Early millenium technology enabled the Puebloans to use this location for settlement. Pottery was needed to haul and store food and water. Clay was an essential precursor to the mortar used to bond the rock walls together. Weaving and lumber production enabled the workers to make the scaffolding, ladders and rope necessary to construct the towering structures.

The topology of the Mesa Verde location provides several desirable habitation qualities. For example, the cliff has alcoves that face south and east which provided passive solar heating benefits. The cliff formation itself offers protection from the elements -- intense sun, wind, rain, and snow -- and acts as a meta shelter, of sorts, to the individual homes. This concept is similar to the protection offered to a treehouse by a thick tree top canopy.

Also, the unique terrain offers protection from intruders and predators. The cliff makes for an solid rear guard and provides the support needed to build multi-level structures and defensive front walls like an ancient patchwork castle. Building houses high up has other defensive advantages: the inhabitants can see further out on the horizon like a watch tower; they can use wall, gate, and door structures to make access from below impossible; and they can use gravity's potential energy to aid in slinging stones and passive waste removal.

The rooms in Mesa Verde cliff houses are simple, small and functional. Some units use lumber to bolster the earthen walls, and to even create extensions and balconies.

I find this to be an interesting historical example of primal wisdom: When basic survival depended on good shelter people would seek out large scale natural formations. It was important to build a home in a way that was optimized to the natural advantages found to already exist in the environment.

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Adric's MAKE featured treehouse

Adric's MAKE featured treehouse

I was at a mens retreat last week and made contact with a really cool fellow from Seattle named Jon Taylor. He hooked me up with a new publication called MAKE magazine, and I'm totally impressed. So much so, that I just bought a subscription.

This magazine is all about providing "how to" technology for the do it yourselfer and inventor types. It dispells much of the mystery behind consumer products and shows you how to build your own, or near equivalent, for a few bucks. And when I checked out the MAKE blog there is a piece on a treehouse. These folks are awesome.

Several photos of this treehouse are also posted on Flickr and it is a good example of a single-tree, urban backyard friendly, design. I particularily like the attention given to building around the tree such as this wall that seals around the branch. Details like this can really add to a great treehouse design, particularily the look acheived when the branch is seen from the inside.

However, accomodating the tree can also be very labour intensive -- both to build initially and to maintain as the tree continues to grow. It is not advisable to build walls or ceiling structures tight to the tree if the branches are too far from the crotch, or if there are seperate trees, since the motion allowances will make sealing them a problem.

Also, one of the biggest complaints I've heard about this type of "inclusive construction" is that sealing water from trickling down the limb is damn near impossible. And the result is a damp and musty reation in the inside of the home. OK for a rude play house, I guess, but not acceptable if one plans to live in it for any length of time.

The last comment I have on this fine piece of arboureal architecture is the support system. One of the biggest issues with building on a single tree is how to acheive balance and support. Notice on the first image that the house is set out from center of the main trunk, and therefore is an unbalanced weight load on the tree. The solution used by Adric and his father is to put a post on the far overhanging edge to provide support to the unbalanced weight. Otherwise, the tree will bend and sag, especially when the supporting branches are not vertical, and the treehouse will become tilted possibly to the point of being a serious problem. All and all, posts can be an effective way to get the most house in your tree, if you like it low.

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