BRANCH OUT Want a tree house but don’t have a tree? We’ve found an inventive solution

If you didn’t long for a treehouse when you

were growing up, you were probably one of the lucky wee things who already had one. This family in leafy northwest London had two young children who were desperate for a hideout of their own. But with no suitable trees in the garden, there was nothing their parents could do – until, that is, they mentioned their plight to imaginative architecture practice De Matos Ryan.

“Simply put, the brief they gave us was to design a treehouse without a tree,” recalls the studio’s Angus Morrogh-Ryan. Without a trunk as a foundation, the struc ture could have taken almost any shape. The inspiration for the angular build in fact came from the kids’ favourite cartoon, Danger Mouse. “Ernest Penfold, Danger Mouse’s reluctant assistant and sidekick, is a timid, bespectacled hamster with the codename ‘Jigsaw’, because he falls apart at the first sign of danger,” smiles Morrogh-Ryan. “The playful new treehouse was going to be Penfold’s hideout. His codename gave us licence to develop a geometric frame that looks exactly like the way it was built.”

Devon’s Timber Workshop collaborated with De Matos Ryan to build a tapered structure using Douglas fir studs, poplar Duraply, a Tyvek membrane and Siberian larch cladding. The narrow windows are a result of the space left between the Douglas fir studs. “We arranged the openings so that they had most relevance to the children peeking from inside the structure,” explains the architect. A stainless-steel cable lattice also covers the outside to encourage plants to climb up it; this will eventually provide gentle camouflage and make it look more tree-like.

The hideout is purposefully adult-proof, with the only way in being through a crawl space beneath the overhang. Inside, there’s a lookout at the peak which is accessed by rope ladder (of course). There are reminders everywhere, though, that this is a step beyond the average rickety old treehouse. A sensor at the top of the structure closes the rooflight automatically as soon as rain begins to fall. LED tube lighting means Penfold is a haven no matter what the time of day. And there’s even WiFi. What? These are modern kids, after all.

Fabrication took four months to complete, including the planning process, though on-site assembly was finished within a week. “Due to its unusual height and form for a rear garden, planning permission was achieved on condition that the structure would be disassembled and removed if the property was sold,” says Morrogh-Ryan.

“All the elements had to be carried through a domestic front door, so the installation was pre-assembled in the workshop to make sure everything would fit.”

The structure’s namesake might be timid, but this version of Penfold is anything but. It’s a bold and creative hideout sure to serve its wee owners for years to come. “My favourite aspect is how it both surprises and delights in the context of the residential block,” Morrogh-Ryan says. “One neighbour calls it ‘the giraffe house’.”

Safari or secret lab, either way, this is a hub of fun that’s already sparking adventures.