Treehouses

by David Pearson. Gaia Books Ltd. and Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2001. Hardcover, 95 pages, $16.95.

Treehouses features arboreal residences from all over the world in a wide range of styles, scales, and levels. Some of these homes shelter activists who have taken up permanent residence in a tree in the hopes of saving it from the saw. All of these homes provide their occupants with a much stronger connection to nature than most earthbound homes—and a few even offer that experience to visitors for a fee, as at the Woodpecker Hotel in Vasteras, Sweden.

Each treehouse is brought to life with a photograph and the story of how it came to be, as told by its creator. Many are built largely, even exclusively, from found and salvaged materials (including, in one case, the fuselage of a small airplane). An introduction provides context for these examples by describing treehouse trends worldwide, and a chapter at the end contains useful tips and guidelines for aspiring treehouse builders.

Treehouses offers a different twist on the green buildings we usually cover in

EBN, and does it in style.

– NM