I’m sure many tiny house enthusiasts have dreamed of living in the branches of an oak tree in their own tree house, hidden by leaves and accompanied by birds and a light breeze. This dream could become a reality with these elegant, little nests from the German company, baumraum. They specialize in the design and building of tree houses and other constructions in natural surroundings.
The company combines the creative and constructive expertise of an architect with the experience of a landscape designer, a tree expert, and other craftsmen. They transform individual ideas and wishes into ingenious and inspiring dwellings that combine versatility with craftsmanship of the highest quality and maximum safety standards. These tree houses are also installed without harming the tree. They are not anchored with bolts or nails into the tree, but rather with textile belts and adjustable steel cables. This protects the bark, trunk and branches and allows the tree flexibility and growth.
The dimensions and the height of the tree houses depends on the stability and health of the tree. Sometimes it might be better to anchor the tree house to two or more trees rather than a single one. The tree houses can have a horizontal or upright design, with two or more levels, or even consist of several interconnected constructions at different heights. Most of the tree houses are units about the size of a small trailer or caravan.
The structure can be insulated, wired and fitted with built-in furniture according to the dimensions of the treehouse. The company also offers a wide range of different interior fittings such as seating and reclining areas, storage space, a mini-kitchen, heating, lighting, stereos or a flatscreen TV, a mini bar and windows facing in all directions. The installation of plumbing depends on the height of the tree house and availability of water supply and sewage disposal features on the property.
The tiny houses are built out of larchwood, oak, Oregon pine or FSC-certified tropical wood. Light metal, textiles and synthetic materials are also used. The tree house can be insulated using natural materials such as wood fiberboard, sheep’s wool or coconut fiber. The tree houses shown on baumraum’s website cost between $25,000 and $200,000 depending on the design, materials, assembly and interior furnishing.
baumraum has recently published a book called, Treehouses – Construction and Design Manual, which is available in both German and English and profiles 25 tree house projects around the world and several fictional designs from the company.
Photos courtesy of baumraum
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]
RIDICULOUS!
Wow, I think the opposite. I think they’re gorgeous.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Something can be ridiculous and gorgeous at the same time. And I think they’re pretty ridiculous, but very gorgeous.
How many of us have seen trees fall over because the ground gets saturated with water, or blow over from high wind (and how much more wind is it going to catch with a structure like these in it?), or limbs fall off because of high wind, or because they’re laden with ice… etc, etc.
Who’s going to insure that? And it’ll cost you up to $200,000??? I could have a pretty decent house built for $200k, and it would be a pretty nice size, be well-equipped, and insurable. That’s where the ridiculous comes in. That being said, they are indeed gorgeous.
If you go to the site and look at the treehouses, many of them actually seem to be set up around trees and not in them. There is one that has what appears to be a “stand” of 5 legs adjacent to a tree. What this type of dwelling seems to be, to me, is something for people who want to be surrounded by nature though not necessarily in the trees. I think many of these designs would be both gorgeous and practical closer to the ground. And the workmanship appears to be of high quality, and the design is esthetically pleasing.
Germans tend to be very appreciative of green space, so maybe it’s not surprising this is a German firm doing this.
And, if someone has $200,000 to spend for something others deem ridiculous, I would not want to stop them from pursuing their desire (I’ll leave that to the teabaggers and the Westboro Baptist Church). I think it’s great to see every option out there, from the ludicrous to the ridiculously dull and practical. Most things fall somewhere in between but we can use our own talents to take someone else’s idea and use it for something that works for us.
There are several like that. Several have the actual structure supported by legs, and the adjacent tree runs through the deck, or the stairs wrap around a tree. Still, good look getting an insurer to underwrite that. And spending $200,000 on something you can’t insure is, as Gene said, ridiculous.
And, if someone has $200,000 to spend for something others deem ridiculous, I would not want to stop them from pursuing their desire (I’ll leave that to the teabaggers and the Westboro Baptist Church).I didn’t say I wanted to stop anyone from spending money on something ridiculous; I simply said that it was ridiculous. Nice little political epithet there against Tea Partiers, by the way. I thought that was pretty classy.
That didn’t format right… was supposed to say:
I didn’t say I wanted to stop anyone from spending money on something ridiculous; I simply said that it was ridiculous. Nice little political epithet there against Tea Partiers, by the way. I thought that was pretty classy.
If a person likes the design they can always adapt it to a non-tree setting. The basic concepts work well on steeply sloped lots as well by substituting posts for trees. The first two photos don’t appear to be treehouses.
So Awesome!
I really like them! They would look nice without being so high in the trees as well. 🙂
Umm, I’m pretty sure that when a tree falls, it can still damage whatever is right next to it, even if the building is not actually supported by it. That’s not to say that a larger tree couldn’t also smash a cabin sitting on it’s own. How would you get financing for one of these? I think these provide good ideas and inspiration, if nothing else (for those of us who don’t have $200K in extra cash laying around). I have a treehouse at my cabin that was basically a dark cave. I installed some salvaged windows last season and this year I’m going to install insulation and maybe some flashing on the roof. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to have a flat screen or a wine refrigerator, so no elegant people will want to come )-:
I had a tree come down on my wash house after a storm and nothing even fell off the shelves, though it was knocked a tiny bit askew on the foundation blocks. The roof held up, just a slight crack on one edge. It missed the power line, the clothesline, and the very end feathery tip of it (a big spruce) landed about 2″ in on my deck. Horseshoes!! It looked perfectly healthy, lots of new growth and all, but the centre was rotten. When a really strong wind came from an unusual direction it just twisted and splintered about 6 feet up from the base. Could have been a disaster! It’s worth getting an arborist in to check out trees before building in, on or around them. A little drilled core would have revealed the rot.
Inspiring and beautiful, as are so many of the wildly creative building projects we see on Tiny House Blog.
Sometimes it’s better not to lock in to extreme practicality right away; this is a site for dreamers too!
‘Much easier to build mainly on poles, than working around a trees branches and eccentricities….which is probably what they’re going for, and spinning it a different way- but I do understand the move. Anyway, very aesthetically pleasing/funky/gorgeous- but yeah, I’m sure the price tags are insane…
-Deek
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