Treetop living has long captured our imagination, in Johann David Wyss’s fictional tale of the shipwrecked Swiss Family Robinson (1812), who constructed a tree house on a desert island, and the Guingettes de Robinson that first appeared in 1848: arboreal dining experiences inspired by Wyss’s novel that had style-conscious Parisians ascending to thatched cabins in the trees. Today, the tree house has evolved into something new. “Since the late 1990s, architects have been rediscovering this ancient, seemingly whimsical typology – not for whimsy’s sake, but for sustainability, intimacy, and a renewed dialogue with nature,” writes Florian Seabeck in a new book, Modern Tree Houses, published by Taschen. The book showcases the creations of a new generation of environmentally-minded architects, whose contrasting approaches to treetop living are united by a shared desire to reconnect with the natural world. Here are 10 modern tree houses from the book.