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Even with
good knowledge of the woods it took Joel months to find just
the right tree to carry the treehouse two architect friends helped him
to design. The egg shaped bubble, wrapped around the trunk of the
tree, is reminiscent of the
Yellow treehouse in New Zealand. Joel's quest for the perfect tree was guided by a location that wasn't too
arduous to reach and by aesthetics so that the proportions of the house
would be in
harmony with the land and its surroundings. This is a
process all natural builders go through trying to find the right
local materials and the right design for the right plot of land.
Joel has come to realise that building this tiny place in the trees was an
expression of his personality, something all too often people don't
get the opportunity to discover when they buy a home designed
for an off-the-peg person which has never existed.
The treehouse sits amongst Canadian Hemlock from which it takes its
name The HemLoft.
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It was kept a secret
for three years because Joel built it on crown land in Whistler,
Canada. Joel says, “Since the treehouse was built on crown land, I
don’t technically own it, and so its fate is uncertain." The future of the treehouse is therefore a little shaky. Another friend Joel made on his journey to HemLoft was Ryan. They
shared secrets about the best places to shower in the woods and the
best sites to camp and together they created a new pastime, Sport
Sleeping, where they tried to outdo each other finding the most
outrageous places to sleep like the hollow trunk of a fallen tree.
Joel spent the next few months sleeping in almost anything but a bed
including a tractor bucket, scaffolding, water towers, and genie
lifts.
Sport Sleeping got Joel thinking about long term
sleeping solutions. Realising his favourite sleeping places were
perches of some sort, the idea of sleeping in a tree was a natural
conclusion.
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After doing some preliminary treehouse research Joel
decided he didn’t like the clunky under-structures of most treehouses
but rather wanted something more elegant.
With the help of two friends Mark and Jayne, who were recent
graduates from architecture school, they set about making designs for
the treehouse.
Eventually a casually suggestion about the shape of an egg was the
catalyst for the final design. An egg shape would be elegant, organic
and (almost) unique. Joel is now left in a bit of a predicament having made the
existence of this tiny home very public in a glossy design magazine
article. Joel is currently collecting opinions on his website to gauge people's views about the future of the
treehouse. More treehouses ...
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