Familia Profana - the process of designing a giant gothic cat tree

We often overcomplicate things for ourselves; this is one of those. 

This is a project we did for our friend, and truly a one-of-a-kind design. 

We don't usually do these massive and intricate designs, as they are hard to ship and sometimes assemble. But this was local and for a very special person.


We wanted to create a church- or cathedral-like structure with a few caskets around it, and one idea led to another, and Familia Profana was born.

This was made using SketchUp and Vray, and the design took a fair bit of time(weeks)



We tinkered with coffins, couldn't find a suitable place, and we didn't want to make it even wider, since the whole thing is enormous as is. 





The coffins changed positions a couple of times.



First, scratching posts were round, which didn't look right to us; we wanted them to be monumental, gargantuan even.

We made them even larger and square, and thought about everything we wanted to achieve with the design.



I was inspired by Gothic architecture and kept rethinking the connection of the cathedral with towers. One of the ideas was a shelf between two towers, but that didn't work, and i wanted cats to be safe and not hurt their legs if they missed a step and fell. 


This setup just didn't function, and the space needed was too wide.  If the caskets were left on the sides, the climb over the scratching posts wouldn't be fluid. And cats do love to have a clean space to climb, especially with such massive trunks. 

And while the middle and top parts were balanced, the bottom needed something.

The view from the back. The coffins on the side were a miss. 



Then we made the square posts and thought, why not make the graveyard part look creepier, with 2 coffins tossed on their sides, making better hideaway beds for cats.



 

The final idea was the coffin that's being lowered from the chapel.



A hanging open coffin bed, cats will surely love the gentle sway.

 



The structure needed to be made from smaller sections, and finding a way to attach them together was a challenge. 

 

The final 3d preview cat tree with plenty of space to play, sleep, scratch, and perch.

This took a lot of time and playing with elements and ideas until we finally balanced out the aesthetics and usability. 

Red plexiglass was added to the butresses as a ceiling, which made it safe for cats, as no leg could fall between the slats, and made the whole design look better. 



 

The main entrances to the central cathedral structure are through the back of the tree, where there are large openings and a great connection with two main scratching posts. The two large scratching posts act as towers of the cathedral and have houses on top. They are great for hiding and uninterrupted snoozing.





The cathedral has red plexiglass walls and features buttresses on the front sides. The buttress ribs needed to have walls behind them to prevent cats from hurting themselves. The cathedral has 3 large cushions and multiple entry points. The main entrance is through the back, via scratching posts.



Underneath the cathedral is a graveyard. There's one coffin-shaped bed swinging from the cathedral's floor and two coffins placed on their sides, with large cushions inside. 







At this point, we knew we were doomed with the work ahead, but had no idea that some things would be so much work