Worldbuilding a Treehouse Community from Start to Finish

Casey Hudson
57 minutes ago
2 min read

I’m worlbuilding a city full of treehouses for my Drifting Amalgams universe. Here’s what I’m asking and learning to create a rainforest community.

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Check out the YouTube version of this blog post.

How to Worldbuild Homes in Sci-Fi Worlds

Environment and community are two essentials for worldbuilding a sci-fi home.

Environment guides choices like building materials and style of residence. While community helps turn a physical space into a place for social connection.

Questions about special building constraints or construction advantages can help.

When exploring these, you’ll want to think about things like gravity and magnetism, or planetary phenomena like earthquakes.

And to worldbuidl beyond just a house to create a neighborhood, look at gathering places that foster community. Things like community centers and libraries.

Greenspaces, too, can bring people together–especially for sporting events.

And remember it’s sci-fi. Only the culture you’re building limits your creativity.

…That’s why it’s time for me to build a community of treehouses.

How I Worldbuild Treehouse Environments

As I’m worldbuilding treehouse communities for my orangutan-based species, I’m finding some interesting real-world inspiration.

For the large, sturdy structures I need, I researched Earth’s biggest trees. Hyperion, a redwood in California, stands tallest at about 380 feet. That’s roughly 32 floors in building terms.

Based on this, I’m making my world’s trees an average of “Hyperion height”. And since orangutans as well as Hyperion’s species are native to rainforests, I have the perfect environment for my treehouse community.

Now, I need to figure out how to make treehouse residences more than just standalone structures.

How I Worldbuild Treehouse Communities

Community is about neighbors, but it’s also about amenities. Places like libraries and parks do a lot to create a sense of belonging.

This poses an interesting challenge as I create a community of treehouses.

Luckily, the trees in my world are much larger than those native to Earth. With them, I can create neighborhoods of multi-use tree buildings akin to skyscrapers.

Each tree houses schools and community centers. And I can designate full groves for entertainment and fashion districts.

Plus, parks can …branch out from the trunks, and they will be abundant throughout the neighborhood.

With skyways connecting nearby buildings and easy aerial transit, the people of this world have a convenient way to live their lives in the clouds.