Fab Tree Hab

Universal access to education has been critically linked to sustenance thus, and US President Jefferson would advocate ecological principles applied to human habitat so that each person could live off the land without detriments. He could have never imagined a human race that ignored the right to freedom from toxicity, carcinogens, and ozone depleting substances.

The Fab Tree Hab house not only attempts to provide a healthy biological exchange with the inhabitant, but also strives to contribute in a positive way to everyone’s quality of life.

A methodology new to buildings yet ancient to gardening is introduced in this design – pleaching. Pleaching is a method of weaving together tree branches to form living archways, lattices, or screens. The trunks of inosculate, or self-grafting, trees, such as Elm, Live Oak, and Dogwood, are the load-bearing structure, and the branches form a continuous lattice frame for the walls and roof.

Weaved along the exterior is a dense protective layer of vines, interspersed with soil pockets and growing plants. On the interior, a clay and straw composite insulates and blocks moisture, and a final layer of smooth clay is applied like a plaster to dually provide comfort and aesthetics. Existing homes built with cob (a clay and straw composite) demonstrate the feasibility, longevity, and livability of the material as a construction material. In essence, the tree trunks of this design provide the structure for an extruded earth ecosystem, whose growth is embraced over time.

In congruence with ecology as the guiding principal, this living home is designed to be nearly entirely edible so as to provide food to some organism at each stage of its life cycle. While inhabited, the home’s gardens and exterior walls continual produce nutrients for people and animals. As a direct contributor to the ecosystem it supports an economy comprised of truly breathing products not reconstituted or processed materials. Imagine a society based on slow farming tress for housing structure instead of the industrial manufacture of felled timber.