You won't find a law that says a workspace has to be in a gray fabric-covered box or a white-walled room. Today's workspace proves that with the beautiful, airy openness of a childhood tree house.
Robert, anindustrious Lifehacker reader, decided his backyard, and his workflow, could use a tree-house-like escape. Built on a small addition and incorporating a beautiful tree, it's a sweet little getaway with everything—ample sunshine, a comfy and compact workstation tucked under the loft stairs, and a great look.
Our home is a small one for the Oakland / Piedmont hills. My wife, an artist and myself are avid readers - even with a transition to ebooks for myself years ago, our collection is outgrowing our home! She needed more work space, and we needed a playspace for our son. These rooms are perched up the hill behind our house, creating a serene meditative atmosphere, while allowing brief respite from home life to conquer an ever changing workload. They are reconfigurable to a significant degree, serving also as reading/theater rooms, emergency guest shelter, yoga / art studio or audio lab.
I've always loved the challenge of organizing and making use of small spaces. Extensive travel to Japan, as well as years of living in Manhattan served as influences for these minimalist, yet storage-rich structures. The cabinets and pantries are all from the IKEA kitchen series. The electrical run went a bit crazy, but I'm pleased with the result. The carbon footprint is reduced by a solar array on the roof of the main house. The "offices" are both hard wired to the home's main server array.
As we have just completed the project after 7 long months, I'm excited as to what the Treehaus' future holds...
Check out a the photos below to take a tour of the Treehaus:
If you enjoyed looking at the Treehaus workspace, you'll definitely want to check out another workspace we've featured with an outdoors and tree-house vibe, The Office on the Forest's Edge.
Update: Robert has started a blog to detail the project, it can be found here.
If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.
The Treehaus Workspace [Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool]