As adults, we know that our relationship to the natural world is increasingly unnatural. Actual forests are disappearing. The climate is changing and our social and psychological relationships are increasingly mediated by commodity forms. In imagining ourselves through the things we buy, we are disconnected from our environment and from genuine social connection. Yet, we strive to regain this authentic-seeming connection through various Romantic movements, culinary trends, health regimens, and Cargo Cults. It is through the very unnatural nature of nature that we seek our creative selves.
So, if you will, imagine another sort of tree. One from a not-too-distant future where the last are penned in special National Maximum Security Parks. The memory of a tree is so far gone from living memories that people try to recreate what they imagine they’ve lost using another sort of Romantic imaginary, one of machinery, scavenged gears, gathered belts, hunted steam pipes, gleaned gauges, rusty metal and gobs and gobs of steam. Our natural world has changed, yet the human drive to connect with it and one another remains. It is second nature. Enter the Steampunk Tree House!
Imagine: City of Lost Children...
Imagine: 21st century neo-Victorian steam culture...
Imagine: H.G. Wells and Jules Verne...
Imagine: Nature’s unnaturalness as second nature...
Imagine: The Steampunk Tree House...
The Steampunk Tree House is representative of a mutually beneficial relationship between people and nature: humans living in harmony with the planet and its natural elements. The House component itself is built of recycled wood, styled after the Victorian age of architecture, H.G. Wells, and Jules Verne, wedded with the organic elements of nature. It’s a house of mystery both familiar and alien. Its surreal otherworldly décor invites its inhabitants to leave behind personal items, figurative pieces of themselves, memories of their childhood innocence, and invites them to release their thoughts and messages to be scribbled on the walls.
Recall the dwelling in the film, City of Lost Children, with its trapdoors, hidden compartments, cyborg fleas, oil lamps, wrought iron hardware, keys that unlock secret compartments, lookout perch, and organically styled wrought iron architecture. The House component is built into, and is a part of the Tree in which it sits. Its semi-exposed skeleton is made of structural steel pipe. Recycled gears, gauges, pipes and other metal objects adorn the Tree and House. A tire swing hangs from one of its main branches and an elaborately sculpted automaton metal condor perches in its branches.
Participants can climb up the inside of the tree, through its branches and into the house by scaling the inside of the trunk. Once inside, they can hang out in the Tree, leave messages or small objects in semi-secret compartments, and connect with each other through the shared experience of childhood tree climbing bonhomie. The Tree’s windows and balconies offer a stellar vantage point over the entire area. The framework and structure of the house is forged organically, cradled in the branches of the Tree. The house itself, designed by Sean Orlando, Derick Gomez, Dan Hauck, is larger than “kid” size and smaller than “adult” size. The framework and skeleton of the house is made primarily of steel and wood. Solar panels provide power to the LED lights placed throughout the Tree’s limbs and branches. The small LED lights give the impression of twinkling fireflies or pixies, while the larger LED lights illuminate the tree and cast its shadow on the ground.
As the night comes alive, the Steampunk Tree House can also come alive with soft plumes of steam. Working in collaboration with The Kinetic Steam Works, KSW can drive up to and hook into the Tree via a steam hose, releasing endless curls of steam into the Tree, and making Tender fleeting dumplings of its lucky inhabitants!
The steam is provided via a series of semi-visible steam pipes and outlets installed throughout the Tree’s branches and trunk. In addition, the House component has its own independent steam ports, enabling it to occasionally function as a nocturnal steam sauna. The base of the Tree has a series of independent steam ports that, when opened, gives the impression that the House is floating on a cloud.
In addition to plumbing the Tree with steam, the pipes that make up the structure of the tree are designed in such a way as to create open paths of tubing throughout the Tree. A series of steel “megaphones” are placed around the Tree, one at the base, one in the House, and two in the branches, in the style of a kid’s tin can & string phone system. Tree dwellers are able to communicate with each other through it. Sometimes the wind is caught in this system, creating low moaning sounds and rustlings.
The Tree House may indeed remind people of a simpler, more innocent time. It may serve as a reminder of childhood, and as an example of how humans might live in harmony with the unnatural nature of nature. However, the tree is also meant to inspire critical thought on the part of its dwellers. Because of the combination of man-made materials —recycled metal and wood— the Tree’s very makeup is meant to regenerate the contemplative faculty, encouraging its inhabitants to reconsider the often-paradoxical relationship between humans, as well as with our environment. The Tree is also meant to exemplify the creative ways we can reuse materials to initiate sustainable living.