Inhabitat

Crazy Banyan Treehouse Cafe in Japan

Although this towering concrete treehouse isn’t really green, (unless tree imitation counts as ‘green’), we couldn’t help but be awestruck by its sheer craziness. We thought it worth a post, just for the picture alone. The Naha Harbor Diner in Okinawa, Japan is a life-size rendition of a banyan tree, also known as gajumaru. The aptly-named Banyan Town shopping center near the entrance of Onoyama Park features a twenty foot tall tree with a pan-Asian restaurant nestled amid its branches. Accessible by a spiral staircase around back and an in-trunk elevator, the restaurant specializes in locally grown and organic harvested foods fresh from the farm.

Overlooking the ocean, the Naha Harbor Diner claims to offer “farm-fresh vegetables, juicy chickens and pork” and “native salts.” And as we all know, native and local foods cut down on shipping and packaging costs, reducing our carbon and plastic footprints. In the end its hard to say whether dining in a faux tree will boost your sustainability points, but it sure looks exciting and native ingredients can’t hurt.

+ Naha Harbor Diner

Via The Design Blog

9 Responses to “Crazy Banyan Treehouse Cafe in Japan”

Fair Trade Says:

October 23rd, 2008 at 5:20 am

Wow! If I’d seen this on another website I’d be thinking Photoshop; it’s a very wacky piece of architecture.

fugusushi Says:

October 23rd, 2008 at 5:43 am

concrete! this is not ‘green’ AT ALL! concrete is hugely ‘carbon-intensive’ to create – not to mention the environmental damage done to actually get the commodities to make/transport concrete!

With so many energy saving/environmentally ‘friendly’ building and manufacturing technologies emerging, it’s ridiculous to feature a concrete structure simply ‘cause it ‘looks like’ a tree! C’mon now…

guone Says:

October 23rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm

I\’d like to see those construction documents!!!!! Apply fake bark here—->

guone Says:

October 23rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I’d like to see those construction documents.

I would say that is has the bibliophile going for it. biophillia with steven kellert

ecomoth Says:

October 24th, 2008 at 12:18 am

My fantasy is that someday there will be enough “old growth” trees that places like this would spot the restaurant rows in many great cities!

theokobox Says:

October 24th, 2008 at 8:30 am

This place is a bit of an oxymoron, heh?

jacobs Says:

October 26th, 2008 at 12:00 am

Unfortunately, speaking as someone who lives in Okinawa and has eaten there before, the food is overpriced and not that great. This doesn’t hurt business, though, because it’s right by the airport and does look pretty freaking cool.

becographer Says:

November 5th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

i would not like one of those branches to fall off and hit me, and people are parking their cars under that!?

inOki Says:

May 10th, 2009 at 3:14 am

This island is mostly either jungle or city- ALL the buildings here are concrete- you’d be an idiot not to have concrete with the typhoons that roar through here…. The branches will not fall off and hit your car. parking under a metal light pole in the WalMart parking lot is far more dangerous.

I have gone to about 30 websites on Naha Harbor Diner (for this is the name of this restaurant) and I have gotten very mixed reviews on the food and service, so I think we’ll pass. I just had to point out that in spite of the environmental ramifications, nothing on this island would be standing if it weren’t made of thick concrete.

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