Modern Architecture

New Zealand’s Tree House Restaurant

 

         The Yellow Tree House stands 10 meters up a Redwood tree in a forest near Warkworth, north of Auckland, New Zealand.  The project was part of a marketing campaign for the Yellow Pages.  Claiming they can “get anything doneâ€� Yellow commissioned Pacific Environment Architects to design the treetop restaurant.  The company then posted an ad for an everyday person to run the project and host the restaurant.  Twenty-six year old Tracy Collins was picked from the applicants, and went about sourcing workers and materials from the Yellow Pages directory

Viewing Tower by Ateliereen Architecten

        Dutch architects Ateliereen Architecten have completed a 25 metre tall viewing tower at an outdoor sports park in Reusel, the Netherlands. The structure comprises six boxes resting on a steel, structural core and incorporates abseiling and climbing facilities. The walls of the tower are made of halved logs, grown in the surrounding forest, which are slotted into the steel frames horizontally and vertically. Two of the six cubes are accessible. The third one is the start platform for a rope slide and a high rope track. In the top box people can enjoy a panorama view of the surrounding landscape and there is a starting platform for abseiling.

Solar Decathlon house by Technische Universitat Darmstadt

        Students of the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany have won the Solar Decathlon competition to design an energy-efficient solar-powered house. Twenty teams of students from international universities competed to design and build solar-powered houses, which were constructed and exhibited at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Teams then competed in ten contests to gain points. The winning design is a two-storey, cube-shaped building covered in two types of solar cells, is highly insulated and has automated lourve window shades to reduce unwanted heat-gain.