The Mirrorcube is so beautifully camouflaged that you can stand in front of it and not see it thanks to the mirrored walls. Take a close look – that mirrored shape among the pines is really a tree house. Photos by Robert Corkery.
Recently, Robert and I were at the Arctic Circle. Well, actually, just south of it. It was cold, snowy and dark. And we stayed in a tree house. But it’s hardly your childhood vision of a tree house, but rather a grown-up, architect’s interpretation of a cool space that just happens to be in a tree.
The incongruously named Blue Cone. While this house was not high in the trees like the other rooms, the living space was cozy.
We flew into Luleå and then got a rental car and drove north to Harads to the Tree Hotel. Our room in the trees was called the Cabin and it felt a bit like we’d gone below deck of a boat. You get to it by walking up a wooden ramp to a portal of a door emerging out of the woods. Walk around the door and you’re on a viewing platform that overlooks the forest and the Luleå River. Go through the door and you descend a steep flight of stairs that resemble ones you would take into a boat cabin. The long narrow shape of the room does nothing to dissuade you from that idea either. A bed floats in the middle of the room, directly looking out a window wall facing the woods and river.
The quiet and peace of the forest is immense. And there’s no TV or radio in the room to distract you from nature either. We also checked out the other rooms. The Mirrorcube is magnificently disguised in the trees thanks to its mirror surface and you get to it from a suspended bridge. The bird’s nest is also camouflaged – it looks like a huge bird’s nest. You have to climb up a ladder and then lift yourself into the body of the nest. It’s all an adventure, perfectly suited for a grown up who still wants to be a kid.
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