Fab Tree Hab Treehouse: An Earth-friendly House Made of Trees

Remember when you were a kid, and you or your parents built a treehouse? Well, that was usually a house built within a tree. However, some architects are working on building a house made of trees.

Two architects, Mitchell Joachim and Javier Arbona are working with environmental engineer Lara Greden in order to create Fab Tree Hab, a house that is made of literally all-natural, homegrown materials.

The idea is only in the concept stage, and the basic concept is to grow trees over a plywood structure. Once the plants are interconnected and stabilized, the plywood mold can be disassembled and then reused. The interior of the house is made of mud, plaster, and other conventional building materials, hopefully organic and green-friendly. The glass in the building is clearly non-organic, but the designers are toying with the idea of transparent materials made of soy that will actually expand as the house's supporting trees grow.

However, this house is as green-friendly as it gets. It is powered by solar power, and also includes a septic system that collects rainwater and then treats and recycles it. You may be imagining something like Yoda's place on Dagobah from the Star Wars films, but this would be a house that you would feel comfortable in. This is no hole in the ground, but a two-story mini-mansion. That's right, this natural marvel is actually two-stories. Al Gore would be proud to live here.

As you might have guessed, it would take quite a long time to literally grow a house. Joachim is looking into Israeli plants that grow quite quickly and have an interwoven root structure to speed up the time, but it would still take five years to grow this literal treehouse.

Of course, time is only one of the problems of this treehouse. Another one is zoning, because current construction practices need building permits, but this home is too organic to call it a permanent settlement.

Another problem is weather. Assuming it does take five years to grow a house, just imagine what the elements would do to it as the seasons passed. Most of these tree-grown houses would not last the winter. The architects hope to solve this particular problem by having many houses grown all at once on a farm. The treehouses can then be transplanted into their permanent lot.

However, this certainly gives the term "housing development" a new definition. Imagine a world where houses are grown instead of built. Where numerous homes are planted like trees in a forest, and then moved into the suburbs. It would be a Green world after all.