A New Zealand man has built a church out of trees because he likes trees and churches.

Barry Cox constructed the unique natural building in Waikato out of five types of trees, which were moved from various locations using a tree space - a machine that can scoop the entire tree, including the root ball, and transport it to another location.

Construction started in April 2011, and the Tree Church opened to the public for weddings, picnics and events from January this year. The masterpiece of foliage seats 100 people.

"I walked out my back door one day and thought, 'That space needs a church' – and so it began," he told Stuff.co.nz. "I cleared the area in April 2011 and made the iron frame, drawing on all the research I had done over the years of studying churches. I wanted the roof and the walls to be distinctly different, to highlight the proportions, just like masonry churches."