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Architects: Nomadic Resorts
- Area: 3 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Peter Jackson
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Manufacturers: Serge Ferrari
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Lead Architect: Olav Bruin
Text description provided by the architects. The Seedpod is the latest treehouse initiative from hospitality design company Nomadic Resorts. The pods have been developed as a pop-up resort concept to allow travelers to escape from the city and offer a unique opportunity to sleep outdoors and reconnect with Mother Nature without compromising on comforts.
The psychological and economic impacts of the Coronavirus and subsequent lockdown will be far-reaching: people will obviously re-evaluate their notions of personal space, work, family, and hygiene; but they will also reconsider food security, travel, wellbeing and their relationship with nature.
The first working prototypes were installed at Bel Ombre Nature Reserve in Mauritius in 2019. Our goal was to take inspiration from the humble seed, to create a floating hotel room that was both ephemeral and robust – comfortable but exciting to sleep in. The idea is that sleeping in the pod is a transformative experience in its own right – a chance to spend a night in a human nest where you can see the movement of the wildlife around you and hear the sounds of the forest
The form of the structure was a critical consideration. The natural shape of a seed is inherently aerodynamic: when the team of membrane engineers introduced the structure into their computer wind model it showed that using a small number of structural rings, combined with a new generation architectural fabric, the pod can resist wind speeds of 120kmh, so guests are safe even if a big storm hits. Since the initial installation the fabric suppliers Serge Ferrari have introduced an anti-viral membrane called Agivir that can eliminate Covid 19: it kills 95% of the virus within 15 min and 99.5% within 1 hour so we truly believe that the next models will be ideal for the low-touch economy.
The other critical consideration was installation. The pods can be quickly and quietly installed within a day using manpower only in remote locations.
The pods can be either hung from trees and rocks or erected on its own tripod and equipped with solar PV, lighting, a ceiling fan, a cool box, and a charging station for devices making it an ideal option for hiking trails, surf camps or silent safaris.
Seeds, by their very nature, are full of potential, so we created a multifunctional interior that can easily be converted from a seating arrangement during the day into a sleeping arrangement during the night, utilizing the full potential of the relatively compact space. The Seedpods can be accompanied by a fully equipped pop-up bathroom with shower, toilet, washbasin, and wardrobe to complete the ultimate back to nature camping experience in style.
Maybe Lao Tzu was right “To see things in a seed, that is genius".
