The Treehouse Case study
As a kid I built my share of tree houses. None were as cool as this one though.
The yellow treehouse was built for an advertising campaign, one which took on a life of its own. Once this project went “viral” on the web we not only had documentary teams from asia live on site beaming out to over 25 million people, we also had our own film crew and we had people watching the project on line in real time every minute of the day.
111 days from the time the client thought out loud “I wonder if we could build a restaurant in a tree” through to council sign off and a dinner to host the clients annual board meeting attended by members from around the world – some seeing NZ for the first time.
Project Controls Principal Joe Holden worked within a dedicated team who delivered this project against vast challenges. Joes primary role was to construction manage the delivery of the treehouse on the clients behalf, calling on over 20 years of experience Joe hand picked builders and tradesmen he knew he could rely on.
Joe was involved in design, most critically selection of the material and supplier for the sculptured fins that close in the treehouses unique shape. Joe was on site daily working with the builders to resolve details and procure materials, with the engineers during stress testing of the tree prior to construction, going as far as operating the massive earthmoving machinery required for the job himself to ensure the tree and therefore the project was not jepordised in any way.
The challenge with this project was the fact that we were facing unique issues every day, the least of which was not killing the tree in the process of delivering the job. We not only had to work to our own critical path but coordinate this with the film schedule to ensure the various adverts based around the project were delivered on time for the clients campaign
In total tens of millions of people have watched this project on TV or the net, over 80% of all newzealanders knew about and thousands have actually dined there.