You can choose cabane 10 meters from the ground. Or houses in the shape of lotus flowers, among the peaks of the forest. But also design apartments, always high in the greenery, between oaks and sequoie. The “Tree Hotel” are the new frontier of hospitality.
A spontaneous refuge of childhood or improvised hut among the branches, today the house on the tree has become the subject of architectural experimentation and a symbol of a new imagination of sustainable living. From the Danish Big-Bjarke Ingels Group to Atelier Lavit, more and more internationally renowned architecture studies confront this archetype, reinventing it in light of a contemporary idea of Buen Retiro: suspended, immersive, in dialogue with nature and built with artisan care. The result is a series of spectacular destinations, between hotels and resorts, where design merges with the landscape and the structure becomes an integral part of the environment that hosts it.
This is the case of Origin, the Tree House designed by Atelier Lavit in a forest north of Paris for the Eco Hotel Cabanes et Spa. Suspended at 10 meters high and built around a secular oak, which is incorporated into the volume of living, the home from the octagonal plant is inspired by the nests of the birds: the cocoon made with a sophisticated intertwining of wooden strips, in fact, interprets the techniques that the birds use to create their impregnable shelters, assembling branches collected in nature.
Reachable through a path of catwalks that wind through the foliage, it reveals inside a welcoming, intimate and bright atmosphere, made such by the large windows and the internal poplar coating that releases a pleasant wooden scent. The same essence of the walls was also used to create custom -made furnishings, worked with thin horizontal slats.
In Thailand, the Architect Space studio and the interior designer Pisit Aongskultong have given shape to the eco resort widespread Keemalaa village hidden in the Phuket forest. The chambers collected in small architecture that recall the buds of lotus flowers by shape suddenly from the forest and intervene with it a dense and respectful dialogue.
By recovering some techniques used in the past to build the houses of the indigenous and semi -permanent ones intended for merchants who passed through the area, the light and essential steel structures support a hut coating made in wooden strips.
To minimize the impact on the environment, moreover, the designers, eliminated where possible artificial cooling, focusing on the study of the natural air flows and the path of the sun in the different seasons have managed, thanks to these precautions, to guarantee a right temperature throughout the day. Local materials have been chosen for the interiors, such as recovery wood and stone, which have been handcrafted for floors, walls and furnishings.
In the United States, in the county of Sonoma, Will Beilharz’s spyglass is, instead, a residence suspended among the sequoie, long and narrow like a telescope. Coated with rusty metal scandles that recall the cortex of the trees, it is equipped with panoramic windows, craft furnishings and even a cedar tank on the terrace.
The use of PEFC certified timber, the aesthetic of the house and its position reveal the eco -sustainable spirit of the project, which is also confirmed by the choice to install solar panels to satisfy the energy needs and by the creation of a system of collection and filtering of rainwater, necessary to fuel the house. But the Treehouse can also become a tool for the protection of biodiversity.
It happens with Biosphere, the suspended accommodation designed by the Big-Bjarke Ingels Group studio, which is added to the other seven of the Eco Resort Treehotel located in the Swedish Lapland and founded in 2010 by Kent and Britta Lindvall. The room surrounded by the forest is built with a metal structure on which, thanks to the collaboration of the ornithologist Ulf Öhman, 350 wooden houses for birds have been installed which give construction a spherical shape.
In addition to offering surprising and close guests meetings with the different species of birds that populate the area, small houses contribute to increasing the local avifauna which from the inventories of the county is gradually decreasing. The interior of the Treehouse, collected and dark, emphasizes the contrast with the bright green of the northern landscape.
Closer to the pest of the stilts is Pan Tretopphyter, The project of the architect Espen Surnevik in the Norwegian wood of Finnskogen.
Two raised cabins, which recall local sighting towers, host essential but well -kept shelters. The envelope is made of black metal and the view is guaranteed by the large windows that define the ends; The floors and walls are made of natural pine wood, and textile details are in local wool dyed in the colors of the forest to better underline the link with nature. The result is a balance between contemporary comfort and ancestral memory.
Finally, in the English campaign of Dorset, Dazzle stands out for his Optical coating inspired by the naval camouflages of the First World War.
Designed by Guy Mallinson for its Eco Resort, it combines handcrafted processes, integrated furnishings and refined construction details in a composition of volumes connected by a covered catwalk, overlooking the woods.
In all these experiences, the tree house exceeds the dimension of childhood refuge to become a suspended, poetic and conscious space, which reinterprets the desire for immersion in nature and redefines the very concept of hospitality and project: among the branches the architecture rises at high altitude and meets the silence of the forests.
