One of the most popular posts on TreeHugger ever was one on a mirrored treehouse hotel in Sweden; it totally broke our site. So with some trepidation I post herein the ÖÖD; it is a design out of Estonia for an instant prefab mirrored hotel room pod; just add to Airbnb and you are in business.
© Maris Tomba for OOD
© OOD
It is plug and play, coming with everything you need.
And why is this on TreeHugger? because no doubt it could be applied to other uses, and it is quite well designed to some pretty green and slick specifications. The 10’ x 20’ box has walls insulated with 8" of mineral wool, while the glass has a really good metric U-value of 1.1 W/m2K, which by my rough calculation is around R-10 in the usual BTUs per hour per square foot. There is an air to air heat pump and hot water heater.
They do make it sound so easy, but it does need six posts, a sewer, septic system or tank, along with water, electricity and internet. That can be hard to do and expensive for a little cabin out on its own. But as an accessory building, or if you bought a few of them, it is not so bad. And if your land happens to be in Estonia (which right now is the only place they sell it) you don’t need a building permit.
It is a lovely little unit that would work well as a little cottage, bunkie or even tiny home; According to Lucy Wang in Inhabitat, It costs US$ 65,000 inclusive of value added tax.
In our original post on the mirrored treehouse, the first comment was negative: “This tree house will undoubtedly kill hundreds of birds as they cannot perceive the difference between the reflected environment and the real environment. A green building is not truly green if it kills wildlife.” On Curbed, Jenny Xie looks at all that mirrored glass in this model and asks:
Lots more photos on Inhabitat and at ÖÖD.
