Fab Tree Hab: Full-Contact Design. Watch the YouTube

Watch the YouTube flythrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcBpwJ0xYG4

Check out the "Fab Tree Hab" the first all-green home design we’ve seen. This has changed my thinking about building green.

Insteat of low-impact residential design, I’m thinking of this as full-contact residential design. The point is to fully embrace and design the landscape you inhabit, rather than the now-fashionable, small-footprint-light-on-the-land ethos now in vogue. It opens up a whole new dialog that is additive rather than reductive. It’s empowering, don’t you think?

According to the Vancouver Sun: "Instead of being just environmentally friendly, the structures would naturally blend in with surrounding ecosystems, he said.

"The group is currently working with Plantware, an Israeli arboriculture firm, to test techniques for growing the lattice-like weave of vines and roots that would help form the walls of the homes. The design technique combines an ancient gardening technique called pleaching — the weaving together of tree branches to form living archways and lattices — with computer technology that controls the growth and shape of a tree.

"Based on a computer model, wooden jigs would be placed at key portions of young saplings in order to guide the formation of the walls and roof. A dense layer of vines and other plants would be grown to reinforce the exterior, which would also feature soy-based plastic windows."

When do we start building…sorry…planting?

Here is NYC, circa 2107 using terraforming on the left, and current pleaching on the right…

thanks ArchNewsNow