Microsoft : Inside Microsoft’s new treehouse conference rooms

Wi-Fi? Check. Power for your tablet or PC? Yep.

Bird calls? All around.

To get to Microsoft's most unexpected new meeting space, embark on a leisurely outdoor stroll up a planked, accessible switchback ramp. At the top, a secure wooden gate swings open to reveal a deck suspended by timber beams and cables. A minty pine perfume infuses the air. Two angled cedar awnings jut out from tree trunks, protecting employees from the elements.

But the elements are why people come here-up into a majestic Pacific Northwest Douglas fir, where a collaboration room is built inside a treehouse.

Aloft, the usual corporate sounds of clicking doors, conference calls, and heels on concrete melt away. A fall wind sweeps through emerald branches. Every once in a while, a pinecone drops to the deck with a soft thud. A sudden ruckus breaks the gentle morning hush: a squirrel scrambling for breakfast charges across the arms of nearby hemlock and western red cedar.

Welcome to a new kind of workspace that's helping employees benefit from what science shows is the powerful impact of nature on creativity, focus, and happiness.

An audio description version of the above video is also available.

The treehouse is one of three new branch-based meeting spaces created by renowned builder Pete Nelson of Nelson Treehouse and Supply. Nelson kicked off the project by spending his first day on the site 'connecting with the trees' for hours, said Bret Boulter, who works in Real Estate & Facilities on Microsoft's Redmond campus and who headed up the project.

The treehouses are part of a larger new system of technology-enabled outdoor districts connected to buildings around campus and empowering employees to work in new ways. On a recent sunny day, an employee perched, legs crossed, on a soft grassy knoll below a treehouse. For several minutes, she sat with her hands on her knees, eyes closed, head tilted toward the sky, breathing deeply. Then she grabbed her laptop and typed furiously. After a spate of work, she set her computer aside, rested her palms on her knees, gazed up, and then closed her eyes again.

While under construction this summer, the outdoor meeting spaces, which include two enclosed treehouses and one elevated roost called the Crow's Nest, created a wave of curiosity.

'It beat out all rumors,' said Shanon Bernstine, a business manager who helped plan the spaces. 'People didn't believe it was really happening: there was a lot of excitement.'

Twelve feet off the ground, treehouse number one features charred-wood walls and a soaring ceiling with a round skylight that lets in just a bubble of blue. It's more Hobbit than HQ, with cinnamon-colored shingles and a gingerbread-house feel.

A hand-carved arched double door glides open at the swipe of a badge. The almost mustardy fragrance of rough-hewn cedar is instantaneous. Inside the small room nests a simple farmhouse table with rust-red seats. Box benches line the reclaimed-wood walls, dark as campfire smoke.

There's no AV system or calibrated climate control. But what happens when people enter is a kind of magic.

'The first thing when you walk into the space is that everyone is really quiet. You stop talking and are just present,' said Boulter. 'It's fascinating. People absorb the environment, and it changes the perception of their work and how they can do it.'