Giant Baobab – Austin Bunton Designs

This is the bulkiest tree in Inisfree, and a sign of many similar and even bigger trees to come.

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Table of Contents:

Introduction
Dimensions & Layout
Special Features
Landscaping
Novels Excerpt
2021 Update
Overall (Images Begin)
Exterior
Landscaping Around the Base
Moat, Ponds, & Pools
GAH-through Concept
Interior Landscaping
Suites
Additional Views
2023 Update: 2022 Scale-model in Minecraft

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Introduction:

This is a skyscraper as tall as the Burj Khalifa; half a mile tall, and is in the form of a giant Baobab tree; one of the signature examples of flora from Africa. This ‘tree’ is so large, in fact, that several lanes of the Glowing Art Highway (GAH; the 16-lanes-wide superhighway which passes directly through the archway in its trunk (that trunk being one third of a mile in diameter)) diverge from the main highway passing through it and corkscrew up in tunnels within this skyscraper to reach its uppermost levels of suites, clubs, restaurants, and observation lounges.

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Dimensions & Layout:

This is Inisfree’s largest tree, and measures about one third of a mile in diameter at its base, and half a mile in diameter up in the middle of its leafy section. It also stands over half a mile tall, and has an entire section of the G.A.H. corkscrewing up and down through its core; this is what provides the most access to its many hundreds of stories and tens of thousands of suites. It has internal halls lined on both of their sides by mansion-sized suites of rooms (which can be used for lodging/residences or just hotel stays), and bridge-sized branches which curve out, topped with railing-and-ropes-bordered walkways, connecting to the ‘external’ rooms and suites (which have views of the other branch-mounted/connected rooms/suites, as well as the surrounding terrain, from their perches/positions hundreds of stories up above the Cropland).

Some lodging here is just a single room (plus a toilet-room with a shower/tub). Other lodging available in this giant tree includes suites of a dozen+ rooms; space enough for big parties or a family to live in. The restaurants are multi-storied with wrap-around dining-porches and balconies.

Landing pads (like you’d see for helicopters in the Outlands) are next to every single ‘external’ room/suite. These are used by people flying our ‘hover-saddles’, also known as “Owls”.

With hundreds of floors, most as big as a small town, and thousands of rooms and suites, there is room in this mega-tree for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of human-sized residents and guests (plus plenty of Inisfreean hostesses and kajirae, which are always present and available for service).

The only other tree in Inisfree on this scale is called the Kapok Helix hotel.

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Special Features:

Near the inside middle of the trunk of this massive construct is one of Inisfree’s dance clubs called Congo Combine. You won’t ever hear its music or crowds, though; it is completely sound-proofed, just like almost all Inisfreean clubs. Enjoy.

* This is also a living being; this towering massive building is a mini World Tree grown by the Inisfreeans with the help of the Elves.

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Landscaping:

The base of this Uber Baobab is surrounded by normal-sized baobab trees, as well as several varieties of Joshua Trees and Yucca plants. The Uber Baobab is so large that there are also full-sized baobabs growing on many of its balconies, as well as all the way up the GAH lanes branching off into streets for its higher levels (baobabs adorn the medians of these street tunnels).

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Novels Excerpt:

“Welcome to our main farmland,” he said with an accomplished smile, surveying its square miles of evenly-cultivated, rich, dark, fertile topsoil. Thousands of rows of crops and colors were so perfectly tended to by just as many Inisfreeans, all of them with colorful heads of hair braided intricately, and wearing only a basket hung over one shoulder to collect the berries, fruits, seeds, and produce. Terraces with rice patties and orchards covered all of this area’s bordering mountain faces. A single giant tree was directly up ahead, straddling the entire 16-lanes-wide highway they were on.

Auz smiled at something; …a memory coming back to the forefront of his mind’s eye; of a vision he’d gotten in the dreaming plane, coming to with his feet in one of this completed farmland’s streams, dappled sunlight on his face and hands from through the grown pecan trees, a great love smiling by his side. His eyes got watery for a moment, and then he recomposed himself. Their car drove up into the massive African tree.

A baobab is an impressive and unique species of tree found across Africa and Madagascar, as well as parts of Australia and Arabia. In the era dominated by surface humans, they were only able to grow to about 100 feet in height, their trunks at-most 36 feet across (113 feet around). In more ancient times, some stood miles across and a dozen miles tall, dominating entire regions. They were a large part of what once kept the Sahara completely green.

Inisfree’s baobab had been grown more rapidly than its natural namesakes, and around a superstructure made of the very rare and strong materials their people used. This made the new baobab virtually indestructible, and the Inisfreeans kept a constant guard on and in it, ensuring nothing would ever happen to the beloved plant. It was a practice and sign of things to come.

Once called the Uber Baobab, now the Giant Baobab, theirs stood somewhere between the modern ones of Africa… and the titans of the past; 2,640′ from ground-level to uppermost leaves crowning its treetop, it included more than 260 floors. It was big enough to be considered a town all by itself, and had many internal wings; hallways lined by two sides of suites, as well as external ones (out within and upon its massive branches).

Thanks to the city’s perimeter wall, which was another quarter-mile taller than the Giant Baobab, even though the Sun seemed to follow the horizon all day long without ever rising or setting during Antarctica’s Summer months, this tree, and all the other plants within Inisfree, got a normal day-night cycle of direct and indirect sunlight. In the Antarctic Winter, when the Sun stayed well below the horizon for months, the bottom of Inisfree’s private ‘moon’ provided the rest of the sunlight-like sustenance it and the rest of the flora within their walls needed. The Giant Baobab and all its landscaping was healthy as can be.

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2021 Update:

Our Giant Baobab is now home to thousands of Elves, mostly of the Elven sub-races (subsets of the parent/root-race simply called “The Elves”) Night Elf and Woodland. Many Blood Elves also frequent this place, reconnecting with their semi-distant relatives in/of those other Elven sub-races. Drow Elves tend to stick to our underground areas, while Eldar Elves prefer the futuristic look-and-feel of our downtown area and Cloud City 2.

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Overall: