um...

[chelidon]

Interesting idea...Lothlorien, anyone?

Edible Homes For Humanity
Using a home-building concept strongly influenced by early 19th century American ecocentric writers Thoreau and Emerson, and looking like a Tolkien elf cottage, MIT scientists have designed a 100% living tree house with its own unique ecosystem. Instead of felling trees, society will be able to farm trees for homes.
According to the MIT designers, this home concept is intended to "replace the outdated design solutions at Habitat for Humanity International... Our goal was to propose a method to grow homes from native seeds. This enables these new local dwellings to be a part of an absolutely green community."

Comments

[erskine.livejournal.com]

Uh-HUH...

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, only from MITties... ;>

[http://users.livejournal.com/faerose_/]

I think it looked better in my imagination.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

heh. Well, whatcha gonna do, designed by engineers ;>

[coraljune.livejournal.com]

From one of the links:
The art of Arborsculpture ... with the potential to save the environment ... [has been called] pleaching, grafting, tree trunk shaping, botanical architecture, biotecture, permaculture, living art, and really weird.

It doesn't quite match my imagination's grand aesthetic conception of living in a tree, but then, that version doubtlessly wouldn't be as efficient. Very cool stuff, thanks for sharing it.

[swansister.livejournal.com]

Neat concept, but why do the homes look so bizarre?

It will be interesting to watch and see whether or not this movement catches on.

Thanks for sharing,

Swan

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

OMG, it's a hobbit-hole AND a tree house! Perfect!

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

yeah, it suits my fancy. But then again, that's exactly what I'm planning to build -- a 4-season treehouse (triangular platform anchored by three massive trees growing in an equilateral triangle), accessed via a spiral staircase from underneath (spiraling around a fourth, smaller tree, growing dead center to the other three), just above a south-facing passive-solar hobbit-hole. This year I hope to start the treehouse, but just downhill from it is a gigantic boulder which I'm hoping to tunnel under to make the "front door" of the hobbit-hole. It's just too perfect not to.

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

I like the way you think, mister. :)

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

*grin* Well, I been *thinking* this way for years, it's only recently I've been able to *do* ;>