At Sweden's Treehotel, Guests Sleep 18 Feet Off the Ground

The hotel's stated objective is to bring guests "close to nature."

By Rachel Cernansky | Tue Jul 13, 2010 13:24

Courtesy of Treehotel

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We've seen crazy-concept green hotels before, and even other mirrored treehouses (!!), but theTreehotel in Harads, northern Sweden may come closest in its mission to offer "a new experience living close to nature in a place of great natural beauty."

The hotel, which opens this month, is made of tree house units, each with a different theme and most designed by a different architect. The rooms vary between 15 and 30 square meters in size and 4 to 6 meters from the ground, and have either two or four beds each—bringing family vacations to whole new level.

Each unit has "its own state of the art eco-friendlyincineration toilet and water efficient hand basin," minimal use of chemicals, and electric floor heating powered by an "eco-friendly source." The plan is to build 24 units over five years and to continue adding variety and architectural involvement to the tree houses.

Above is the "Mirrorcube" unit—designed to reflect its surroundings, but the glass has an infrared film, invisible to humans, that will prevent birds from flying into it—and below are some of the other offerings at Sweden's soon-to-be launched Treehotel.

Treehotel's "UFO" unit

The Cabine Tree House

The Cone

The Bird's Nest

More on green hotels:
9 Questions You Must Ask Before Booking a "Green" Hotel
Stay at Green Hotels When You're On the Go
Almost Invisible Mirrored Tree House Built In Sweden
Danish Green Hotel Offers 'Cycle for Your Supper' Deal
Recycled Hotel Rooms from Wine Barrels for the Oenophile

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/sweden-treehotel-guests-sleep-18-feet-off-ground.html

Almost invisible mirrored tree house built in Sweden

By Lloyd Alter, TreeHugger

Posted Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:21pm PDT

Related topics: Travel, Nature, Design, Buildings

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They said it couldn't be done. When we first wrote about the almost invisible tree house to be built in Sweden by Tham & Videgard, 899 commenters thought it was computer-generated eye candy, impossible to build, and death for birds.

But the architects built it, one of six units in a "Treehotel," which recently opened 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

The four-meter glass cube looks as spectacular in reality as it did in the rendering. Kent Lindvall, co-owner of the TreeHotel, has been quoted as saying:

Everything will reflect in this -- the trees, the birds, the clouds, the sun, everything. So it should be invisible nearly in the forest.

And what about the birds? According to Designboom, Lindvall says that a special film that is visible to birds will be applied to the glass.

The units are constructed from sustainably harvested wood and have electric radiant floor heating and "a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly, incineration toilet"

(Although I've owned an incinerating toilet, and it wasn't that eco-friendly. It used a lot of electricity and created noise and some smells. But perhaps they've improved.)

But other than that minor quibble, this appears to be a truly "eco" resort. The owners say in Designboom:

"This is untouched forest, and we want to maintain it the same way. We decided, for example, to not offer snowmobile safari which is very common up here," says Selberg. Instead, wilderness walks will be offered.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_bloggers/56/almost-invisible-mirrored-tree-house-built-in-sweden.html