A tree house

Every child and many adults dream of a tree house. Somewhere, among the primeval genes that persist in us, are those that recall the arboreal life of our forebears. They persist in the indefinable feelings of identity, of adventure, even of sanctuary, which so many experience in a tree house. I have a tree house, a place both of sanctuary and of delight (Fig. 1). Enfolded in an urban rainforest that I love, I look both out and down; and delight in the beauty of the still green world, enjoyed from the perspective of this private place. Like the tree houses of children's literature and their imaginations, it is a real place of hospitality and sanctuary. The author's tree house, in suburban Brisbane. Photograph, September 2012. Tree houses have been a recurring theme in the most loved children's literature for 200 years. Many alive today grew up with the stories of the Swiss Family Robinson and their tree house.1 Written in 1812 by a Swiss Lutheran pastor, Johann David Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson promoted the virtues of ingenuity, self-reliance, creativity, good husbandry, resilience and tolerance.2 Their tree house was a place not just of sanctuary. Complete with its library, it was a haven of combined adventure, security and family love. Almost a century after Wyss' book, J.M. Barrie (1860–1937) produced the stage play, Peter Pan, in the post-Christmas season of 1904.3 The narrative was first published in book form as Peter and Wendy in 1911.4 In it, Wendy Darling lived in a Neverland ‘house of leaves deftly sewn together’. Peter Pan himself, ‘the Boy who Wouldn't Grow Up’, was partly derived from the character of Pan, the mischievous Greek deity of the woods. In 1929, James Barrie donated the copyright of all the Peter Pan productions, plays and books to the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street, London. I completed my training as a paediatric neurologist in the Peter Pan Ward in that Hospital in 1974. ‘So Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher Robin, who lived behind a green door in another part of the Forest.’ A fantasy tree house in Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (1926). Etching by E.H. Shepard courtesy of Egmont Publishers and (formerly) Methuen Children's Books, with acknowledgements. Owl's fallen tree house in The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Courtesy of Egmont Publishers and (formerly) Methuen Children's Books, with acknowledgements. A tree house is both a lookout and a place of security. One is safe therein; and its elevation engenders a hint of dominance. One can see much, often all around. In their tree house, children are above the world ‘down there’. Our Neolithic ancestors built their villages on high ground, often on hilltops. Such contemporary tableaux can be seen by all who fly over the mountains of Papua New Guinea today. The Benuaq Peoples (of Kalimantan) and the Korowai People of West Papua live in tree houses, the latter in refuges 30 m high.8 Our metal-smelting ancestors built Iron Age hill forts on natural or man-made hilltops and retreated to those sanctuaries at times of threat and to participate in special social ceremonies. ‘the horizontal branches serving as seats; he held a banquet in the tree – the leaves provided a partial awning – in a dining-room spacious enough to hold fifteen guests and the servants. Caligula called this [the tree house] his “eyrie” ’.10 ‘In a meadow to the east of the villa [Villa di Castello], Cosimo constructed a stepped walkway climbing up into it [a massive holm oak tree], and at the top of a large platform with seats “… with backs all of living green … and in the middle a marble table with a vase of variegated marble into which water is piped … the pipes are so covered with ivy that they cannot be seen and the water is controlled by taps.” ’13 ‘Like Cosimo, Francesco was a crafty and brutal tyrant … but Tuscany was well governed … at his new Villa di Pratolino he freely indulged his love of artistically designed gardens.’14 ‘Two staircases [which] spiralled up, parallel to one another on opposite sides of the tree. Stepped ramps rather than staircases, they led high up to where a platform eight metres in diameter had been created among the top most branches … on which were a marble table, seats and fountains that were fed from water piped along the branches.’15 A tree house is a physical place of enthusiastic adventure for children. In their imagination, the tree house becomes a fort, a ship, a treasure island, a balloon with its basket, a spaceship or a military bunker. For adults, perhaps sheepishly aloft, it can be all of these, relived again in the recalled imagination of our own childhoods or in one's adult childhood of today. ‘children are drawn to these spaces that are essentially their own. It is important for young children to have a space that is theirs, where they can pretend, make decisions, create, and play games.’17 ‘We loved building forts. It was dangerous: pretty high in a tree, with wood wedged between two branches to make a platform. It's amazing that my mother let us spend the night in them.’20 ‘into tree houses for local children and adults. The success of his exhibit was linked to the creativity of the building and fondness associated with re-living childhood memories, and an escape from urban life.’17 The tree house concept, as a private place of both sanctuary and happiness, has been developed in several modern children's hospitals. Several hospital planners and architects have developed this concept in their design of outpatient waiting areas and on-site respite accommodation homes for the families of long-term inpatients (Fig. 4). The Ronald MacDonald House at the Wilhelmina Children's Hospital (Wilhelmina Kinderziekenhuis (WKZ) ) in Utrecht was designed as a tree house and is so named (Fig. 5). That ‘tree house’ functions as a much appreciated place of refuge for parents, families and ambulant patients in that splendid children's hospital. The forest motif in the entrance to the tree house, the Ronald McDonald Huis, in the Wilhelmina Kinderziekenhuis (WKZ) [Wilhelmina Children's Hospital], Utrecht, the Netherlands. Left to right: Mr Berry Dekkers, Principal of the WKZ Hospital School; Ms M. Jansen, Superintendent of the Ronald McDonald Huis, WKZ; and the author. Photograph, October 2012. The atrium of the tree house of the Ronald McDonald Huis, Wilhelmina Kinderziekenhuis (WKZ) [Wilhelmina Children's Hospital] Utrecht, showing the tree house architecture. Photograph, October 2012. ‘children make decisions, act on those decisions and perhaps develop skills valued by society and inhibit those which we do not value.’17

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