Andreas Wenning, the 40-year-old head of Baumraum Design in Bremen, Germany, has done a lot of thinking about structures usually reserved for those well under the legal voting age. “A tree house,” he explains, “is not only a hideaway. These dwellings among the trees fire our imagination, bring back childhood memories, and foster our aspiration toward an extraterrestrial dimension.” Despite Wenning’s otherworldly claims, the reputation of Baumraum (which literally means “tree space”) has rapidly expanded here on earth. Wenning and his colleagues have already seen ten of their tricked-out tree houses built in Germany, Austria, and Brazil.

Though every tree house is unique, each is based on the same simple construction method: Take a suitable piece of land, assemble the prefabricated elements—shipped directly to you from Bremen—and position the house between two or more strong trees. Steel cables help raise the structure into the air and anchor it to the ground. The larch wood houses stretch into the sky vertically or crawl horizontally across the aerial landscape. All feature large sun terraces and windows that allow extraordinary glimpses of the surrounding area—a far cry from that plywood contraption your well-meaning father built for you when you were a kid.