Sweden's Tree Hotels

The picture to your left is not a piece of concept art for some weird, upcoming sci-fi movie. It's a luxury hotel room that's currently under construction in the small Swedish village of Harads.

Designed by the Stockholm-based architecture firm Tham & Videgård Hansson, the room is an aluminum structure covered with one-way mirrors. On the outside it blends in with the forest so well that it becomes nearly invisible, but on the inside guests have a full, 360 degree view of their surroundings.

Guests enter by a rope ladder or a bridge from another tree. The room features a double bed, kitchenette, bath and even a roof terrace. To prevent birds from crashing into the structure the outside is covered with ultraviolet stickers, invisible to humans but visible to birds.

This is actually just one of several tree-based hotel rooms (or "treehuts") being built in Harads. Other designs have been commissioned from various notable architects, including Bertil Harström's bird's nest-like room, seen in the picture at bottom left.

The project's website explains it all this way: "Changed valuations create new possibilities and exclusivity will get a new signification. To experience nature close under simple conditions will in the future be something extra valuable. Undisturbed nature becomes assets in thinly populated areas. At least for temporary visits. In Harads two entrepreneurs have chosen to work around this concept."

The tree hotels will be completed later this year, and in early 2010 guests will begin their temporary visits to experience the assets of undisturbed nature close under simple conditions.






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Technocrati tags: [Tree hotels]