Live Architecture — Grow Your Own Home

Ostracus writes to share a new take on the word "treehouse." Engineers and plant scientists from Tel Aviv have taken the application of tree shaping to the next level, designing everything from streetlamps to houses. "A home built from trees, the researchers said, would be a natural storm protector. 'After earthquakes and after tsunamis the only structures that still survive are trees,' said Yaniv Naftaly, director of operations at Plantware, a company founded in 2002. Naftaly told LiveScience the same sturdiness should apply to tree-made homes. Eshel and TAU colleague Yoav Waisel are working with Plantware to commercialize the leafy designs. The team found that certain tree species grown aeroponically (in air instead of soil and water) have roots that don't harden. Once the malleable, so-called soft roots grow long enough in the lab, they are molded around metal frames in the shape of a playground or park bench."

Comments

Perfect for my great grand children...

[the_arrow]

Trees don't grow on... Well, yes they do, but Rome wasn't built in one day either.

Would be nice, but it's too slow for any of us now living to use it.

Re:From the article

[ColdWetDog]

As long as you have a good water supply, good soil, and a community that is liberal enough to allow such structures

... and several decades to grow anything larger than a park bench. Come now, this would require planning a structure many years before you could use it. Unless they have created some industrial strength Miracle Grow, this is going to remain in the realm of park benches, custom picnic tables and cheesy 3D graphics programs.

Re:From the article

[ColdWetDog]

Oh, you might be able to do something that was standardized (? standardized trees), but you're likely going to get into some big problems 1) moving the things and 2) replanting them. Remember, one of the benefits touted is the ability to withstand major environmental insults such as water and earthquakes. The reason that trees (sometimes) do this is because of their extensive root systems. Said root systems are the product of many years of treeness.

If you grown a structure, then dig it up, then put it back the root system is going to be fairly fragile for some relatively (in terms of the classical building trades) long time. It just doesn't strike me as very practical for very much. Perhaps some edge conditions or smaller things. You would need to combine this with some genetic engineering for really fast growth in order for this technology to be generally useful.