Treehouse Museum Presentation Slides.

In Cabinets of Wonder, Nancy asked us to present a pitch for our “dream museum.” We were to assume we had a massive budget, and that any barriers could be overcome; if it was physically possible, we could propose it. I chose to focus on treehouses in part because I’ve always been fascinated by them, but also because of their ability to appeal to so many human desires and interests.

Before I started my slides or told anyone what I would be proposing, I asked everyone in the room to close their eyes, and then I asked them to use their imaginations:

Take a deep breath. Now take another deep breath, but this time imagine the smell of the woods when you inhale. Whatever kind of woods you like– oak forest, redwood, pines– imagine somewhere you are surrounded by trees, and try to get that smell into your memory and hold it. You’re walking through the woods. You might feel a faint breeze or hear some birds, you feel the ground under your feet. You come to a particularly large tree, and you reach out to touch its bark. Consider how it feels under your fingertips, whether parts are rough or smooth, if it’s sticky from sap.  Walk around to the other side of the tree and see that there’s a rope ladder hanging there. As you begin to climb the ladder, feel the texture of the rope under your hands, notice the creaking of the branches around you. You can smell the scent of the tree change as you move away from the floor of the forest. The ladder sways just the slightest bit; you can look down if you want, or just look ahead and notice the patterns of the tree’s bark and any little insects you pass as you climb. Soon you see a structure above you, several smooth planks laying across the branches. Your ladder ends at a trap door. You reach up and stretch to push it open. You feel your arms tense as you hoist yourself inside. You’re in a magnificent treehouse, looking out on the forest canopy around you. Take a second to look around…

My classmates agreed that their imagined treehouses, although radically different (some were sprawling, deluxe tree mansions and some were ramshackle lookouts), shared a few traits that make them so appealing.

Part of what makes treehouses so appealing to so many people is that they incorporate opportunities for all sorts of interests and talents. They allow interests in design and engineering to flourish, they provide opportunities for observation of the natural world, they offer secret hideaways, and they offer us an opportunity to exercise our capabilities for climbing and movement. In some instances, they even serve practical purposes such as hunting lookouts or escape from predators.

The idea behind the treehouse museum is that it would use these strengths to engage visitors of all types, interests, and abilities. You’ll see a slide in the middle of the presentation that says, “I can create a life in which I am more cognizant of the natural world around me.” This is a “takeaway statement,” what I would hope visitors would say upon leaving the museum. Of course, a variant of that might just be, “Can we build one?”