Million years ago our ancestors came down from trees but now it seems to move back there. Superb and luxury Amazing tree house from the likes of Snohetta and Mallinson are the good to feel that you are move back to nature without compromising with the comforts like saunas and luggage elevator.
University of Dundee has developed a new architectural concept of living among trees a little greener and to get advantage of their natural cooling mechanism to maintain the right temperature in eco tree houses. This concept is brainchild of Mr. Anthony Leung, a civil engineering lecturer at Dundee who to minimize reliance of construction on nonrenewable building materials like concrete. His idea is to build an eco-treehouse built around the tree as support column to bear the weight of house and its contents.
“Structurally speaking, a tree trunk of adequately large diameter would be strong and stiff against both compression and tension,” says Leung in a press statement. “It can carry and then transmit floor loads to the foundation soil.”
It’s an amazing tree house as its interior has been made from insulating wooden slabs to maintain a comfortable temperature inside. Exterior has been covered with climbing with climbing plants. These features combine with the tree’s natural metabolic process to let the heat dissipate through the leaves to keep the structure at a cool and comfortable temperature.
“Like human beings, plants are living materials that need to maintain their metabolism by regulating their ‘body’ water content and ‘body’ temperature,” Leung tells New Atlas. “Plants do this by transpiration – an evaporation process that occurs mainly at the leaf surface via stomata (pores) to adjust and relieve environmental stresses. Evaporation brings energy away from leaves and causes cooling effects. This is why planting in urban cities might mitigate urban heat island effects. Borrowing this concept (and the power of nature), plus proper circulation systems installed, we are hoping that the green roofs and climbing plants on the exterior walls in the treehouse might regulate room temperature.”
The canopy overhead performs like a natural umbrella to keep protected the building from elements and the rainwater can be collected by the grass growing at roof top of the amazing tree house. The green roof redirects the water to a mini treatment plant to filter and pump it back to the best tree house. Any organic waste generated by the house can be collected, filtered and delivered to home for nutrition to keep the symbiotic relationship maintained between the tree house and its inhabitants.
“The point of developing this concept is to demonstrate how we can borrow the power of nature to create natural shelter for human beings in a modern, yet ecologically friendly way,” Leung explains in a press release. “This is not a proposed building in a specific site but something that will hopefully add to the debate around construction techniques.”
Love tree houses!