treehouse.htm

FORTY YEARS AGO, "THE JETSONS" GAVE US A FANTASY VISION OF THE FUTURE WHERE PEOPLE LIVED AND WORKED IN AIRBORNE STRUCTURES AND PILOTED FLYING CARS THAT FOLDED NEATLY INTO BRIEFCASES.

Though a seemingly far off concept, Bring the Jetsons' homes in the sky a bit closer to reality. Rising above treetops, Spherical innovative creations will soon provide homeowners with a unique opportunity to admire a spectacular view of nature while residing in a home specifically designed to preserve it.

The "Concept Tree House," is a prefabricated home designed to exist in concert with the landscape around it. This varies drastically from grounded homes, which typically require that the landscape be substantially altered to make way for a block of foundation.

The prefabricated homes rest on stilts, casting a smaller footprint on the surface below, and therefore displacing as little of the surrounding countryside as possible. The inspiration for the concept was derived "from looking at beautiful forests and thinking it would be a lovely place to live, but it would be a shame to cut the trees down," The Concept Tree House, therefore, enables homeowners to reside amongst the natural foliage without destroying it. "The tops of the trees become your garden.

The intentional preservation of scenery isn't the only part of the design that endeavors to be environmentally friendly. Kinetic baffles on the underside of the structure turn wind power into a clean, self sustaining energy source for the house; the baffles are designed to provide enough energy to single handedly power the home. In addition, they also act as an appealing aesthetic. Situated on the underside of the home, the baffles mimic the underside of the leaves on trees, further enhancing the natural environment.

The home is fabricated from lightweight FRP (fiberglass reinforce plastic) materials that facilitate a quick, two-week installation time after the larger components are put together off site. The design team chose prefab for this reason and a variety of others, namely because "you can control the cost. And you're having it built within a specialty factory where they have great experience in exceptional finishes. So in effect, you're having a building built with those specifications and those finishes as opposed to building it onsite where costs can escalate, you have less control, and things tend to get damaged."