My, how tree houses have grown up. Once the preserve of middle-class children (well mostly, you need a garden and a tree, for a start), now the quirky hotel alternative for the middle-class adventure traveller.
You wouldn’t have thought there were that many out there, but publisher Taschen along with author and renowned architecture expert Philip Jodidio have turned their gaze skywards and discovered 50 of these offbeat buildings – art installations, restaurants, hotels and fanciful playhouses – for their book Fairy Tale Castles in the Air. These tree houses are certainly not the dad’s shed offcuts of your childhood, but incredibly sophisticated, sympathetic and at times downright spectacular structures.
The range of designs is huge, from the Hansel and Gretel style woodcutter’s cottage to the Spielberg-esque spacecraft, from the stunning to the almost invisible. As usual, where We Heart goes, others follow – the Swedish Treehotel dwellings to which the Mirrorcube belongs caught our eye early last year, so we’re delighted to see this fascinating phenomenon merit its own book. One question though: Who’s carrying our suitcases up to our room?
© Inredningsgruppen; Treehotel
Inredningsgruppen, Ufo Tree Hotel,
Harads (Sweden)
© Pete Nelson
Michael Ince, Bialsky Tree House,
Bridgehampton, New York (USA)
© Harald Melcher/Rubinland
Tree House in the southwest of Irian Jaya (Indonesia)
© Åke E:son Lindman
Tham & Videgård Arkitekter, Mirrorcube Tree Hotel,
Harads (Sweden)
© Tom Chudleigh
Tom Chudleigh, Free Spirit Spheres, Qualicum Bay,
British Columbia (Canada)
