An unbuilt hotel in Harads, Sweden by the firm Tham & Videgård Hansson

     One of the more intriguing designs in Arcadia is for an unbuilt hotel in Harads, Sweden, by the firm Tham & Videgård Hansson Arkitekter. It’s a 4×4x4-meter mirror-clad box hung around (or perhaps impaled by?) a tree trunk. You access it via a rope bridge that’s connected to a nearby tree. Like the Too-High Teahouse, this hotel is, well, too high. But it’s not trying to be cute. It lacks any character of its own, really, as its façade is the reflection of the surrounding trees. I guess that’s the point: why try to blend in by riffing on naturalistic design when you can be the trees and sky and all that good stuff?