As much a conceptual work of art as a practical portable prefabricated piece of architecture, this modern take on the traditional log cabin has a very clear idea carried to completion: a stack of logs ‘broken’ in the middle (snapped liked twigs, perhaps) to create two separate-but-related pieces of a whole.

The break is not without its reasoning: transporting, lifting and setting each portable prefab unit is much easier with two small structures than it would be with a single large building. The entrance to each volume faces the other, providing views out in either direction and through slits along the sides.

From Olgga Architects: “The flake house, a nomadic, road-gauged dwelling, has been conceived to clad the places wherever it lands, as to transpose them in an unusual vision. A poetic shelter, a folie, that merges low-tech and hi-tech. The interior finish is smooth and stripped down as to contrast with the traditional look of the external log cladding.”

“Created in 2006 for the competition ‘Petites machines à habiter’ held by the CAUE 72, OLGGA’ proposal for this nomadic wooden shelter is based on the concept of the «folie», where the wooden structure is broken in two halves establishing a radical spatial boundary while materializing an unexpected entry sequence. An object, recalling a broken branch, whose unconventional scale is the main idea of the project: to be built-up, taken down, moved, put down, left behind or taken along, inhabited or left to it’s surrounding.”

“First a short-listed entry in the competition that gave birth to the concept, then winner of the “Lauriers de la construction bois” of the Salon du Bois in Grenoble in 2007, the flake house cause curiosity and desire. Last year, the flake house was set up in Nantes (FRANCE) between the 5 June and 16 August at the Festival Estuaire Nantes/ St Nazaire organized by the Lieu Unique.”