Many young architects probably get their first experience of construction building a one in the back yard, but not many grown up architects are commissioned and given a budget to build a treehouse.
Just north of Auckland, one architect's fantasy commission came about when he was approached by an advertising agency looking to make a new kind of mark.
The ad is for the Yellow Pages, and in a new form of marketing they actually built the project as part of the commercial.
It is like something out of a children's fairy tale, hanging in a stand of old redwood trees on State Highway 1.
When the commission was offered to architect Peter Eisling, he says he had that once in a career opportunity to let his creativity loose.
Mr Eisling's design has captured architectural imaginations and artists' impressions have gone viral on the internet.
"The easiest part was coming up with the concept," he says. "The trickiest part was to make it hang there."
It hangs there thanks to steel collars and pins that run through the trunk of the tree.
The Yellow Pages knew they could have faked it, but instead they decided to really build it because they knew it would not be easy.
"It had to be something that had a massive degree of difficulty," says Nick Worthington of the agency Collenso.
At first, the agency considered building a space rocket.
"We were so close to building a rocket," says Mr Worthington. "It was like, if we do it there will just be one little bang and it'll be gone."
So instead of a rocket it was a treehouse.
Building consents were approved surprisingly quickly, although some thought it was a joke.
So even with the unplanned addition of an access pathway, they somehow built the whole thing in a matter of four months.
The scaffolding comes down tomorrow, and already the restaurant is taking bookings.
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