They said it couldn't be done. When we first wrote about the almost invisible tree house to be built in Sweden by Tham & Videgard, 899 commenters thought it was computer-generated eye candy, impossible to build, and death for birds.
But the architects built it, one of six units in a "Treehotel," which recently opened 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle in Sweden.
The four-meter glass cube looks as spectacular in reality as it did in the rendering. Kent Lindvall, co-owner of the TreeHotel, has been quoted as saying:
Everything will reflect in this -- the trees, the birds, the clouds, the sun, everything. So it should be invisible nearly in the forest.
And what about the birds? According to Designboom, Lindvall says that a special film that is visible to birds will be applied to the glass.
The units are constructed from sustainably harvested wood and have electric radiant floor heating and "a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly, incineration toilet"
(Although I've owned an incinerating toilet, and it wasn't that eco-friendly. It used a lot of electricity and created noise and some smells. But perhaps they've improved.)
But other than that minor quibble, this appears to be a truly "eco" resort. The owners say in Designboom:
"This is untouched forest, and we want to maintain it the same way. We decided, for example, to not offer snowmobile safari which is very common up here," says Selberg. Instead, wilderness walks will be offered.
By Lloyd Alter, TreeHugger
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