Children arrived in the classroom to find a letter addressed to us, indicating some information on what our new company could be. The letter reads:
On holding a company meeting to discuss the letter and establishing that we are treehouse designers and builders, we set about thinking about our company values, bearing in mind that we use only sustainably sourced wood certified by the FSC. Some of our values discussed include:
“We check that our customers are always happy with the products we create, and adjust our designs along the way”
“We have to make sure that people like the designs and that they are good quality”
“Our products are eco-friendly and sustainable”
“Our treehouses are safe and stable”
“We make sure that we don’t disturb the wildlife in the trees. For example, we wouldn’t remove a bird’s nest in order to build a treehouse”
After this, we decide to create our own company profiles and official job titles. Some of us are the treehouse blueprint designers, some are wildlife inspectors, some are health and safety officers and carry out quality checks. We thought about what questions we need to ask back to the FSC about the exhibition. When is this taking place and where? What exactly do they want to see from our company? What time is it? We put these questions into a letter back to find out more.
The company name ‘The Living Woods’ was decided, and our office has started taking form.
We studied different types of trees in the UK and around our village, and took time to take in our thoughts and reflect on this by creating individual pieces of writing titled “As I lie down in the grass” … we took into account all what we can see, hear, smell and feel and came up with descriptions, similes and metaphors. Along with these we drew detailed observational drawings of the trees around the area.
To add to our company repertoire, we drew out designs and wrote out descriptions detailing our previous work. We then placed these descriptions and images around a world map and using pins and string could pinpoint and show where these are.
Now that our company headquarters are up and running, it is time to start building dioramas of our treehouse designs ready to showcase at the FSC design exhibitions. These need to be of high quality and have different moving parts on them. We talk about how we can make products that use pulleys, levers, sliders, even ziplines, and how to incorporate these into the designs. Many of our treehouses have features such as tyre swings, moving doors, hammocks and ziplines! We selected tools and materials that would be suitable and fitting for the purpose. We found that small pieces of wood – lollipop sticks and twigs for example, and cardboard boxes for the main structure were particularly useful.
The process of creating our treehouses involved a lot of prior planning, whilst also having to
be able to make alterations and adaptations during building if necessary, and then evaluating afterwards.
We wrote up evaluations on our structure’s strengths, what we needed to adapt, and what we would alter for the future to make the treehouses stronger and more stable.
The exhibitions have been a success, and we now receive a rather vague email from Kingston Town Council in Jamaica! They have contacted us saying that the tourism in the country has dropped since covid and they think we may be able to help with this by building some treehouses in the country’s capital. We must now hold a company meeting to discuss this further and see if it is something we want to partake in!
