One Big Tree

One Big Tree

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Urban Treehouse Living with Shipping Containers

Urban Treehouse Living with Shipping Containers

For more on the 'treeless treehouse' theme, German designer Lars Behrendt has conceived of an incredible tower called the Lotto Turm.

The tower uses 55 shipping containers stacked up into the shape of an urban residential and office space treehouse.

The structure is designed to look as organic as possible with a spiral pathway that circles around the building and plant gardens that will accentuate the varied vertical landscape.

It is proposed to be located in the center of Stuttgart, Germany, in the centre of a roundabout called Oesterreichischer Platz which, for the last 40 years, has been used as a parking lot.

The shipping container design also creates a noise-free courtyard, relying on elevation and shape to dampen the nearby traffic sounds, and is intended as a low cost way to increase the usefulness of this underutilized paved space.

Article via designboom

Treehouse Related Injury Statistics

Treehouse Related Injury Statistics

Medical researchers in Ohio published statistics showing that in the US 2,800 children a year are hurt in treehouse related accidents. The injuries ranged from bruises to broken bones, but all were serious enough to send the children to the emergency room.

To put this statistic into perspective: Other research found treehouse injuries to be far less common than playground injuries, which account for about 200,000 emergency-room visits a year. And tie racks and clothes hangers sent about the same number of people (2,956) to the emergency room in 2007.

There are some simple techniques anyone can use to lessen the chance of treehouse injuries:

• Build the treehouse 10 feet or less from the ground
• Add several inches of soft mulch around the base of the treehouse as a cushion
  
• Use solid 38-inch-high barriers and guardrails
• Demonstrate the use of rope tie-ins and other safety techniques for tree climbing

And, one of the most important ways to minimize the chances of childhood injury -- whether in treehouse or anywhere else in life -- is to familiarize your kids with the idea of managing acceptable risk. This is a long-term approach to child raising with the goal of empowering kids to make informed decisions regarding their own safety and therefore be responsible for the consequences of their own actions.

Sometimes kids have to fail to learn that lesson. So, let them fall 8 feet onto soft bark mulch and get a bruise. Its a much better education than keeping them 'safely' indoors all day.

Article via Chicago Tribune

Takasugi-an: Tea Tree House

Takasugi-an: Tea Tree House

Takasugi-an, which means means "a tea house [built] too high" located in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, Japan (photos by Edmund Sumner via Dezeen Blog).

Takasugi-an was built by Terunobu Fujimori, a tea master, who has an interest in architecture and wished to push the limit and constraints of a traditional teahouse. I think it's a good example of a small yet beautiful design for the purpose of escape, meditation, and reflection -- a perfect setting for the Japanese tea ceremony.

The tea masters traditionally maintained total control over the construction of these "enclosures," whose simplicity was their main concern. They therefore preferred not to involve an architect or even a skilled carpenter - an act considered as being too ostentatious. Following this tradition, Fujimori decided to build a humble teahouse for himself, and by himself, over a patch of land that belonged to his family.

One of the interesting points is the method Fujimori used to support the tea tree house. Rather than build in existing live trees, he instead chose to harvest two Chestnut trees from a local mountain and install the trunks like irregular poles to support his creation.



The choice of non-living trees for support affords a few luxuries in the building process. For one, the builder can position the home anywhere that suits his desire rather than rely on nature's placement. Second, the trunks are static in the sense that they're dead wood like the rest of the building materials, and therefore, may be integrated directly with the house structure itself. Tying a living trunk into a plaster covered wall (picture on the right) is not possible due to the constant movement and growth of the living tree. But in Fujimori's design it works quite well.

Once inside the room, which is padded simply with plaster and bamboo mats, the architect's adventurous spirit gives way to the serenity more suited to the purpose of making tea and calming one's mind.