I love the whimsy of these houses. I spent half of my childhood in the suburbs and half in the country. Both of our houses had tree houses, the first built by my dad at the back of our postage stamp yard. The second a rotting, crumbling little thing that was tucked away in a break in the trees on our four acres of property. The first I loved, it had a rope swing, trap doors and was in a very good climbing tree. It was a great outlook for checking out the neighbour's pools and surveying the garden. The second, however, seemed so much more mysterious surrounded by a cocoon of greenery. Who knew where it came from or who had built it? I still love the idea of creating a space within the trees, or allowing trees to grow in your space. Some of our clients have a tree growing on their multi-story balcony courtyard twenty-something floors up in a high rise building. It seems so unexpected. Maybe it's just the juxtaposition of the natural and the man made that I like so much. Either way it kind of feels like magic.
