Tree House features temporary dwellings that respond to remote forest sites, tool limitations, and local, non-dimensional materials—an embodiment of the housing crisis faced by forest rangers. Throughout American timber history, we used nominal sizes regardless of tree species and type, which facilitated the balloon frame construction but also led to massive forest land clearing across the nation. In contrast, this model aims to explore a minimal process to structurally utilize crooked tree branches and the possibilities of scaling up for broader adaptations.
The program offers basic shelter units for forest rangers, similar to existing ranger shelters that combine RVs, uninsulated wooden cabins, tents, and other structures. However, these treehouse shelters provide short-term shelter ranging from a few hours to days, and the process involves creating an interior enclosure in a timber-abundant forest with minimal external materials and industrial processes involved.
The construction of this architectural model(shown in images) utilizes components no longer than eight feet in scale (excluding trees), and nothing should exceed one person's handling weight. As a result, the assembly process involves seeking and sorting a hodgepodge of materials. The resulting architectural model, without precise drawings and planning, is a construction of unconventional jointing among stick materials and seams among sheet materials.