We’ve all experienced the dread when you hear some middle manager spout the fateful words: “Let’s meet in the conference room,” right?
While the bland, sanitised surroundings force you to drift off into some faraway fantasy, the fluorescent lighting sucks those last remaining creatively-wired brain cells out through your hair follicles.
Perhaps sensing this, Microsoft commissioned some new meeting rooms for employees at its Redmond campus.
Except they aren’t any old ‘productivity space’ dreamt up by some awful Shoreditch creative agency, designed to eek more from already shattered office workers; they’re treehouses built within some beautiful Pacific Northwest Douglas fir trees.
The tech meets Tolkien outdoor meeting spaces have Wi-Fi, fireplaces and wooden canopies and they sound like heaven.
“Aloft, the usual corporate sounds of clicking doors, conference calls, and heels on concrete melt away. A fall wind sweeps through emerald branches,” Microsoft writes in a blog post.
“Every once in a while, a pinecone drops to the deck with a soft thud. A sudden ruckus breaks the gentle morning hush: a squirrel scrambling for breakfast charges across the arms of nearby hemlock and western red cedar.”
Hobbit hole or workspace?
The trio of treehouse were built to last for the next 20 years by Pete Nelson of the TV show Treehouse Masters. They’re were designed as part of the firm’s tech-enabled outdoor districts and visiting one sounds more like a yoga retreat than actually going to work in the morning.
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“On a recent sunny day, an employee perched, legs crossed, on a soft grassy knoll below a treehouse,” the blog continues.
“For several minutes, she sat with her hands on her knees, eyes closed, head tilted toward the sky, breathing deeply. Then she grabbed her laptop and typed furiously. After a spate of work, she set her computer aside, rested her palms on her knees, gazed up, and then closed her eyes again.”
Are you petitioning for your workplace to built a treehouse as we speak? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
