A room for you. Nesting space for birds.
A hotel room in the trees is wrapped in birdhouses, making space for other inhabitants part of what guests come to see.
SE SwedenIn practice. A completed guest room opened in Harads in 2022, with hundreds of birdhouses built into its outer structure.
What to keep in view
A built nesting structure is not proof that birds use it successfully or that the development produces a net ecological gain.
Put other inhabitants in the brief
Treehotel opened Biosphere in Harads in 2022. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group with input from ornithologist Ulf Öhman, the suspended room is surrounded by hundreds of birdhouses on a metal frame. A bridge leads into a glazed interior, where guests look through and beyond the boxes into the forest. The design proposes nesting space as part of the room’s architecture and experience.
Most nature accommodation sells a view. Here, the needs of other inhabitants help shape what the guest sees and the building becomes a visible proposal for coexistence. The architecture and operating room are real. A rise in bird populations or net biodiversity has not been demonstrated by the available project accounts.
A habitat needs more than a visual gesture
Habitat for birds became part of the room’s façade and the guest encounter, rather than scenery outside it.
Read next.
Cycle with water at eye level.
Both change a visitor’s position within a natural setting. A room surrounded by nesting boxes and a sunken cycle path create encounters that still need ecological assessment.
A library can begin with shade and a place to sit.
Both invite people to stay with a landscape rather than pass through it. A permanent hotel room and a seasonal reading place use very different amounts of infrastructure.