Chris Bowes

When I was younger, some friends and I explored the bushland surrounding a local park in Brisbane, Australia, where we stumbled across a wooden platform set high up in one of the trees. Not sure who had built this magnificent structure, we made it our mission to furnish it. We laboriously hoisted chairs up on a rope to create a comfortable escape from the prying eyes of our parents and the rest of the civilized world.

This experience was one of my first connections with the bush as a refuge from the concrete composition of suburbia. Recently, I attempted to find this structure from my youth, sadly to no avail. However, once again via my explorations of the bushland in the suburbs, I have found a number of other shelters that people have built with varying permanence and purpose, hidden away from the constriction of life in the city.