BORGLOON, Belgium (Reuters) – Instead of taking a summer vacation abroad because of the coronavirus pandemic, some Belgians are looking for a new camp to revel in at home, spending an afternoon in a tear-shaped tent hanging from a tree.
The concept of the Dutch artist Dr. Wapenaar, the tents in the trees also serve as an artistic installation and are considered a sculpture rather than a commercial production tent.
“The tents are completed every summer, but this year the reserves were much faster. If we had more tents, they would also be taken every day in July and August,” said Katrien Houbey, tourism manager of the eastern city. of Borgloon, who has housed 4 tents along a wooded box since 2011.
“I think it’s because of the rules of your own country’s government. So other people started looking for opportunities to stay somewhere,” she says.
At 70 euros ($79) per night, the tents can accommodate two other people and reach a bathroom and barbecue.
Designed in the 1990s for environmental activists seeking to save tree felling, tree tents have been exhibited in New York and across Europe.
“My tents are too expensive to produce (commercially),” Wapenaar told Reuters. “I deserve to have conceived it if I sought to sell a lot. Array… I’m not a smart product designer, I’m an artist.”
Wapenaar has another four tents in the Belgian town of Bornem, near Antwerp, one in a sculpture park in the United States, another at a bed-and-breakfast in France and three at a camp site in the Netherlands.
Written through Robin Emmott; Edited through Janet Lawrence
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