Q. Where can we eat?

A. Once people book with us the first thing they ask; where can we eat? There is a wide variety of restaurants and eateries within 5 to 25 kms of our rental spheres… everything from neighborhood pubs to fine dining. We are happy to point you in the right direction once you arrive.

Q. Do we bring our own bedding and towels?

A. Even though you will be communing with nature, you won't be ‘roughing it’. As one guest wrote: "This was my most luxurious outdoor experience". We supply towels, bedding, hot showers and a sauna. We do not provide breakfast. Complimentary snacks are provided upon arrival.

Q. Height from the ground – minimum, maximum?

A. They can be sitting on the ground in a cradle or as high up in the air as the trees will permit. The limiting factors are the size and spacing of the trees. In the big old growth Douglas firs on the west coast of Canada they could be as high as 35 meters (120') or more. It gets a little scary at that height though.

Q. How much does a sphere sway?

A. The spheres sway gently in the breeze but move much more abruptly when someone inside changes position. Since the tethers are almost vertical, and a sphere is tied to 3 separate trees, the movement of the sphere in the wind is a muted average of the motion of the treetops. However, since the spheres are light (500 kg) when somebody inside moves it jiggles the whole sphere.

Q. How does the door open?

A. When the door handle is turned it pulls 4 pins that release the 4 catches on the door. The door can then be pushed out and swung out of the way. The hinges articulate on both ends. This allows the door to move straight out of is hole before I starts to swing. When the door is swung shut there are 4 latches that engage and lock the door into the hole in the side of the sphere. The latches are a the top, bottom and both sides of the door.

Q. Is the floor flat?

A. There is a small flat floor area in the middle of the sphere, much like a camper (or caravan).

Q. Is there power?

A. Each sphere is equipped with a standard power connection that is recessed into the side of the sphere where the suspension bridge attaches. A plug is inserted into this connection which brings power into the sphere. The power supply must be connected to the nearest source of electrical power of the right voltage and frequency.

Q. Can they be used in the cold?

A. A standard sphere has a heater and can be used in temperatures down to about - 20 C without any modification. Better insulation could be installed as well as a better heater if the sphere was to be used in a colder climate.

Q. What are the dimensions inside and out?

A. Outside diameter of shell = 3200 mm or 10' 6". The wall thickness of a fiberglass sphere is about 3 mm, The sphere then has a set of wooden frames about 18 mm or 3/4" thick added inside to make the finished inside diameter of the sphere 3150 mm or 10' 4".

Q. Is there an ideal type of tree to hang spheres? Are they hung from several trees or just one?

A. You have to look at every grove and see what is available. In a very big maple or oak or banyan tree you could put a sphere inside the crown of one tree. Otherwise it could be suspended from the branches of several trees. Here in the Pacific Northwest we have an abundance of large conifers with a tall straight trunk and small branches. As a rule of thumb you can always test you chosen points of suspension by rigging a line from the suspension point to the base of an adjacent tree. Then place a tension gauge in the line and apply a strain to it with a come-along. I like to test my attachments to about 1 tonne. If they can take that without signs of breaking they can hold a sphere. You should always consult an arborist about the nature of the trees. Here on the west coast of Canada the maples grow so fast and big that they fall apart when they get too big. Willows do the same. Don't tie to trees that fall down when they get big.

Q. What kind of wood do you use to build spheres and why?

A. I use wood that is local light, bendy and takes the glue well. Eve was made from Yellow Cedar and Eryn from Sitka Spruce.

Q. Do walls separate rooms?

A. There are no walls inside our spheres. It is all one space. When I make a bathroom sphere I will use interior walls to separate the toilets, showers and sauna spaces.

Q. What made you look to the trees?

A. There are a lot of trees here on Vancouver Island although the majority of them are second or third growth. The majority of first growth forests have been logged. Even when city folk move out into the country the first thing they do is clear at least a 30 m square piece of land to build their house on. Then they build a concrete foundation and up from there. The destruction mounts quickly.

I wanted something different. To enable people to move into and inhabit the forest without taking it down first. To live in and among the trees and to use them for a foundation. In this way the foundation depends on maintaining a healthy ecosystem. It also gives me back a magic environment right outside my front door. Like a bird in a nest.

Q. What is you best moment you have spent in a sphere?

A. My favorite time in the sphere is when I'm alone in bed a night, after the lights are out. You can see out into the forest and sill see the shape of the ceiling. It's like being in a nut shell that's decorated like a palace. It feels like you are floating in the canopy among the sleeping birds. When it's stormy it can be tense, but nothing like a storm at sea.

Q. Where did the idea come from?

A. A lot of people ask me where the idea came from, or how I come up with it. I always tell them I came from the spirit realm and they often look at me like I must be nuts. So it goes.

The way I see it I am a spirit with a body. The world is a dream and my real existence is in spirit. The Creator is everywhere and in everything, including me. Therefore I am one with the Creator and everything else in all of existence. This and many other similar thoughts lead me to a more awakened state. It, like many others, is a practice of meditation and leads to a state of blissful awareness of an existence outside of the physical body. The trouble I have is that I do not exist in a meditative state often enough or long enough to completely escape my attachment to the physical world. Like most of us I am easily dragged back into the life of a body here on the planet earth. I still have work to do here.

This way of thinking led me to pose a question to Spirit, "What can I do to prolong these "Whole" minded moments?" The idea for the spheres came from that. The spheres are all about unity and oneness. Architecture is a way of shaping and creating habitat to reflect a feeling and to harmonize with the environment. The sphere is a form of architecture that reflects that thought and feeling of oneness. Where normal square/rectangular housing separates walls, floor and ceiling with hard lines and often color and material changes – in a sphere they all become one...one shell. Like a nut it also has some amazing engineering properties, as the shell tends to distribute stresses throughout the structure. It reacts to environmental stresses as one unified structure not a bunch of disconnected panels. Why not a unified space to practice meditation and healing?

Then continuing with Spirits idea - take and hang it from ropes and let it float in space. Take away he ground I grew up dreaming of tree houses and it's a space that feels like magic to me. There are many spaces that have that magic feel on the planet and this is a way of accessing them. It also lets us access them without disturbing the environment. We can move into the forest or jungle or a canyon or maybe under the water and experience it without disturbing it. No concrete, no foundations and no destruction of the space to make way for human habitation. The web of rope the spheres hang from is more bio-mimicry. It spreads the attachment around to many different strong points and ensures safety. More echoes of Spirit. In a dynamic environment, like a forest canopy in a storm it pays to mimic a natural system like a spider web. Don't try to constrain the movement of the trees. Keep things flexible and stretchy.

It brings together a lot of ideas that have been around forever, but never connected in this manner. People living in tough little ping pong balls attached to stretchy ropes. Evolving and awakening as they go. Think it might catch on?
 

Free Spirit Spheres Qualicum Beach, BC, Canada Tel (250) 757-9445 Cell (250) 951-9420 Email tom@freespiritspheres.com