A tree house, tree fort or treeshed is a platform or building constructed around, next to or among the trunk or branches of one or more mature trees while above ground level. Tree houses can be used for recreation, work space, habitation, a hangout space and observation. People occasionally connect ladders or staircases to get up to the platforms.
Siding or wall cladding is the protective material attached to the exterior side of a wall of a house or other building. Along with the roof, it forms the first line of defense against the elements, most importantly sun, rain/snow, heat and cold, thus creating a stable, more comfortable environment on the interior side. The siding material and style also can enhance or detract from the building's beauty. There is a wide and expanding variety of materials to side with, both natural and artificial, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Masonry walls as such do not require siding, but any wall can be sided. Walls that are internally framed, whether with wood, or steel I-beams, however, must always be sided.
Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable architecture uses a conscious approach to energy and ecological conservation in the design of the built environment.
Tree shaping uses living trees and other woody plants as the medium to create structures and art. There are a few different methods used by the various artists to shape their trees, which share a common heritage with other artistic horticultural and agricultural practices, such as pleaching, bonsai, espalier, and topiary, and employing some similar techniques. Most artists use grafting to deliberately induce the inosculation of living trunks, branches, and roots, into artistic designs or functional structures.
Bionic architecture is a contemporary movement that studies the physiological, behavioural, and structural adaptions of biological organisms as a source of inspiration for designing and constructing expressive buildings. These structures are designed to be self-sufficient, being able to structurally modify themselves in response to the fluctuating internal and external forces such as changes in weather and temperature.
The MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1865 by William Robert Ware, the school offered the first formal architectural curriculum in the United States, and the first architecture program in the world operating within the establishment of a university. MIT SAP is considered a global academic leader in the design field and one of the most accomplished schools in the world. MIT's department of architecture has consistently ranked among the top architecture/built environment schools in the world, and from 2015 to 2018 was ranked highest in the world in QS World University Rankings. In 2019, it was ranked second to The Bartlett but regained the number one position later on in the 2020 rankings.
The Revere Quality House is a house located in Siesta Key, Florida that was designed by architects Paul Rudolph and Ralph Twitchell. It is a breakthrough in twentieth-century residential architecture which blends elements of the International Style with site-sensitive design that is considered one of the notable examples of the Sarasota School of Architecture. The house represents a substantial advancement in how people should live within their environment, and established a new paradigm in tropical home construction.
Pleaching or plashing is a technique of interweaving living and dead branches through a hedge creating a fence, hedge or lattices. Trees are planted in lines, and the branches are woven together to strengthen and fill any weak spots until the hedge thickens. Branches in close contact may grow together, due to a natural phenomenon called inosculation, a natural graft. Pleach also means weaving of thin, whippy stems of trees to form a basketry effect.
Living sculpture is any type of sculpture that is created with living, growing grasses, vines, plants or trees. It can be functional and/or ornamental. There are several different types of living sculpture techniques, including topiary, sod works, tree shaping and mowing and crop art. Most living sculpture technique requires horticultural skills, such as grafting or pruning, to create the art.
Millard House, also known as La Miniatura, is a textile block house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1923 in Pasadena, California. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Mitchell Joachim is an architect and urban designer. He is the Co-Founder of Terreform ONE, and an Associate Professor of Practice at NYU. Previously he was the Frank Gehry Chair at University of Toronto and a faculty member at Pratt, Columbia, Syracuse, Washington, The New School, and the European Graduate School.
Richard C. Reames is an American artist, arborsculptor, nurseryman, writer, and public speaker. He lives and works in Williams, Oregon.
Arthur Wiechula was a German landscape engineer. His marriage to Lydia Lindnau, produced three children, Margarethe (1895), Max (1897) and Ernst (1900).
William John Mitchell was an Australian-born author, educator, architect and urban designer, best known for leading the integration of architectural and related design arts practice with computing and other technologies.
Terreform ONE is a 501c3 non-profit architecture and urban think tank that advances ecological design in derelict municipal areas. By formulating unsolicited feasibility studies and egalitarian designs, their mission is to illustrate speculative environmental plans for New York City and other cities worldwide. Their intention is to support community outreach and master plan solutions in underprivileged areas that do not have direct access to qualified architects and urban designers.
Christopher Cattle is a British furniture designer who has developed a process of growing furniture by shaping living trees. Cattle calls his work GrownUp Furniture but it is also known as Grown Furniture.
A living root bridge is a type of simple suspension bridge formed of living plant roots by tree shaping. They are common in the southern part of the Indian state of Meghalaya. They are handmade from the aerial roots of rubber fig trees by the Khasi and Jaiñtia peoples of the mountainous terrain along the southern part of the Shillong Plateau. Most of the bridges grow on steep slopes of subtropical moist broadleaf forest between 50 and 1,150 m above sea level.
Elora Hardy is a Canadian designer, who founded the company IBUKU. She is most well known for designing a community of bamboo homes near Denpasar in Bali. She was born in Canada, grew up in Bali and moved to the United States at the age of 14 to go to boarding school. She then got a degree in fine arts and worked in the fashion industry where she most notably designed prints for Donna Karan. In 2010 Hardy moved back to Bali and founded Ibuku, a design firm that uses bamboo and other natural materials to build homes and structures. Since that time Ibuku has built more than 90 bamboo structures in Southeast Asia and Africa, including the Green School Bali campus. Hardy created a yoga pavilion and riverside cooking classroom at the Four Seasons in Bali, the interior design of Tri restaurant in Hong Kong, furniture for the Como Marketplace in Singapore and tree-house suites at Bambu Indah.
Baubotanik is a term that describes a building method in which architectural structures are created through the interaction of technical joints and plant growth. The term entails the practice of designing and building living structures using living plants. In this regard, living and non-living elements are intertwined in such a way that they grow together into plant-technical composite structures.
There are various methods of tree shaping. There are strengths and weaknesses to each method as well commendable tree species for each process. Some of these processes are still experimental, whereas others are still in the research stage. These methods use a variety of horticultural and arboricultural techniques to achieve an intended design. Chairs, tables, living spaces and art may be shaped from growing trees. Some techniques used are unique to a particular practice, whereas other techniques are common to all, though the implementation may be for different reasons. These methods usually start with an idea of the intended outcome. Some practitioners start with detailed drawings or designs. Other artists start with what the tree already has. Each method has various levels of involvement from the tree shaper.
