There are small homes, then there are smaller homes … then there are super-skinny, ultra-mini houses inside of homes. The strange starts on the outside but quickly works its way to the interior. For starters, the whole (larger) home is sandwiched between thick and solid concrete slabs that rise straight up on either side of an extremely narrow building site. But step inside, please, and see an even smaller surprise.

Within the thick exterior walls, a wood cabin-shaped box serves as a suspended loft bedroom space. The wooden siding and conventional cabin (or mini-house) shape make it seem almost like a forest retreat … except that it sits within a living room area in an already-small house. This curious little home-in-a-home part even has windows and a skylight of sorts.

Kitsch or not, this room-within-a-room concept turns a somewhat cramped-feeling master bedroom interior into a cozy sleeping quarters – the wood serving to warm the space and set it apart from the colder concrete and bare white surfaces around it.

A multi-story vertical space serves to create some breathing room in the middle of the house while also acting as a light well. This openness is mirrored in the open-tread stairs that cling to the concrete sides and drop down from the lofted bedroom. These slim metal staircases also serve as bridges to connect spaces across voids, allowing movement but maintaining a sense of separation and spaciousness as well.

Even at three stories tall, this slim Ryoichi Kodi Kojima boasts less than a thousand square feet of space – and that is if you include the small front porch below and tiny deck area on the third floor above. All things considered, it is hard to tell that this complex Japanese home is so small (at least by American standards) from the dynamic floor plans and three-dimensionality of the interior.

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The idea for Muuw started during the pandemic when Tommy Truup, an expert in steel fabrication, decided he wanted to create work-from-home spaces that could also act as backyard retreats. Truup founded Muuwspace and designed his ideal one-room escape, with a shape inspired by beehives and the carbon structures in human cells.

Three of the pod’s six walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, so the 100-square-foot space feels much more expansive than it really is. Insulated glazing from Saint-Gobain features a metallic blue external reflection so you can maintain privacy and avoid getting overheated.

The cabin is constructed from durable galvanized steel, insulated fully for all climates, and capable of withstanding a heavy snow load on its roof. It also boasts luxurious floor heating, a quiet speed-controllable ventilation system, dimmable LED lights inside and out, a triple-glazed aluminum entry door, wall-integrated speakers, five electrical sockets, and two separate USB charging sockets. It even comes with an attached terrace with a frame made of hot dip galvanized steel.

A variety of interior finishes are available for the Muuw backyard work pod, including oak laminate on the ceiling and walls. The outdoor deck and screen at the entrance of the pod can be made of ash or pine wood. Buyers customize the Muuw to their liking and send the order to Muuwspace’s factory, where it’s built and delivered to the installation site in separate pieces. Assembly takes just one or two days depending on access to the installation site, which could be a backyard, garden, terrace, or even remote land. The whole thing is delivered on the back of a truck.

“Muuw can be used as an add-on to your main home or placed in a completely separate area of your choice – depending on whether you’d use it for focused work, productivity, reading, self-development, hobbies, or full relaxation,” the company says. “The interior is a calming, personal space – fitting snugly inside the building’s hexagonal structure. Each Muuw space boasts modern interiors and vast, panoramic views.”

“The unique exterior design also feels incredibly contemporary, using minimalistic materials combined with warm, traditional wood that’s sure to attract everyone’s attention. Just picture yourself stood in the Muuw, looking out over the horizon – we guarantee it will provide you with the feeling that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, with relaxation being the key to productivity and accomplishment.”

Pricing for each Muuw pod starts at $32,000, depending on the options you choose. Muuwspace is currently able to deliver and assemble the pods throughout Europe and the United States, including the UK, Ireland, Norway, and Switzerland. It takes 8 to 16 weeks to receive your Muuw after ordering.

The post Upgrade Your Home Office with the Muuw Backyard Work Pod first appeared on Dornob.

The translucent white shingles are counter-weighted and attached to the exterior of an open-air gabled building frame using bolts that allow them to flutter up and down. When the wind blows or rain falls onto the shingles, they move, either slowly or rapidly, all together or in waves. This “shivering” makes the cabin seem like it’s directly responding to the weather conditions.

“She seems to have a personality: sometimes calm when the breeze seems to make her breathe, sometimes angry when the gusts agitate her in all directions…This animal character binds us to her and encourages us to spend time on the spot to observe its constant transformation,” the designers explain.

“It anchors visitors in the present moment. Its movements allow us to see, hear, and feel the wind more acutely. We are also connected to the surrounding trees, whose simultaneous agitation we perceive more clearly. Thus, Shiver House makes us aware of the natural world around us. By anchoring us in the present time and connecting us to nature, this cabin does us good!”

The movement keeps the installation in a constant state of transformation, holding visitors’ attention and hopefully creating a closer emotional link between them and the natural world where the hut is located. The structure builds on the success of previous iterations of Shiver House installed in Finland. This one is designed for longer-term use, and will sit within the park of Louvre-Lens for years to come.

The installation is the result of a collaboration between engineers Elliott Wood, NEON, and Odysee des Cabanes, a project that invites architects, landscape architects, designers, and visual artists to interpret landscapes through specially designed cabins, offering users the possibility of sharing moments of play, relaxation, discovery, or discussion.

NEON artist Viliina Koivisto and architect Mark Nixon founded their studio as a way to encourage playful interaction between art and everyday people. “We empathize and listen to ensure our projects resonate with people who use them,” they say. “We manipulate familiar materials in ways previously unimagined. We design with every sense in mind. We deliver once-in-a-lifetime emotional experiences.”

Inaugurated in 2012, the Louvre-Lens was created as a new off-site museum where an innovative approach to art could be developed from scratch. Located in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, the museum was designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa from Japanese architecture studio Sanaa, and its main exhibition space, the Galerie du Temps, houses over 200 artworks on loan from the Louvre in Paris. Additional works like Shiver House V2 are located on its grounds.

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Made of waterproof and fire-resistant fabric in bright white, the tent is made to stand out. During the day, it looks like a small cabin vividly visible against a backdrop of dark woods. At night, when it’s illuminated from the inside, it glows like a lantern. So whether you’re heading off on a hike or just trying to pee at 3 a.m., you’ll always be able to find your way back to your cozy nest. Yibei describes it as a “cloud,” as if you pulled a wisp of a shelter down from the sky and set it down in your ideal camping spot.

The inflatable tent boasts a simple shape with a triangular roof and rectangular body. Made of 210D Oxford polyester with polyurethane coating on the fabric and seams, it’s durable enough to use in most weather conditions, including rain. Instead of unwieldy and annoying poles, the tent is held up by its airframe made of flexible, flat-pack TPU pipes that expand to 120 millimeters when inflated. The frame is designed to mimic the columns and beams of an actual stick-framed house. The tent also expands to an impressive 8 feet by 7 feet with a much higher ceiling than you’d normally get in a traditional tent, making it feel even more like a hut or cabin.

The best part of all might just be the tent’s many generously-sized windows. One giant window on each side can be opened to the fresh air, with insect screens to protect you from bugs, of course. The tent even has two huge skylights for stargazing after dark. The result is a space that feels fully connected to your outdoor setting while maintaining protection from the elements. The large size also means you can stand up to change in private, or set up a table and chairs to dine indoors in inclement weather.

Yibei explains that “when you enter the cozy white space, the ceiling is high and the room wrapped in white fabric is very bright. Opening windows on all sides connects the inside and outside, blurring the boundaries. In the forest, you can just hear the trees blowing in the wind, the chirping of birds, and the smell of wood and earth. The sound of the waves and the scent of the tide create a pleasant time on the beach. When it gets dark, close the windows and turn on the lights, and you’ll be able to relax in the comfort of your own warm home.”

The Air Architecture inflatable tent comes in a portable carry bag and can be inflated with any standard battery-powered air pump. The one downside may be that it takes a full eight minutes to fully inflate, which could drain the battery quickly. It’s also likely that the tent will slowly start to sag after a while if you set it up for a long trip, but if that happens, all it takes is a quick top-off of air through the tent’s valve.

Alas, if you’re chomping at the bit to hit “add to cart,” the tent is currently only available in Japan at Tsutaya Home Appliances+, so it might be a little hard to get your hands on in other countries.

The post Air Architecture’s House-Shaped Inflatable Tent is a Perfect Home Away from Home first appeared on Dornob.

“This project was an opportunity to make new experiences within the Gomos building system: in each house, all the technical installations (water, electricity, and climatization) were concentrated in just one module and extended to the other models externally,” the architects say. “This procedure was standardly repeated in the whole project, accelerating its production/assembly process.”

Summary’s Gomos building system consists of concrete modular elements that simplify the building process. Derived from the way ordinary sewer pipes are constructed, the system is redesigned in order to make it habitable while preserving the stability and rapid deployment abilities of the concrete shells. It takes just a few days to assemble the buildings once they arrive on site.

Summary calls this system “evolutionary,” explaining that each module leaves the factory completely ready to live in, including all interior and exterior finishes, insulation, windows, water and electricity, and even built-in furniture. The system is designed to be flexible, so the structures can be sized up or down or given slightly different proportions according to the user’s needs.

In Paradinha, this translates to a series of angular modern buildings sheltered from the harsh sunlight and set at just the right angles to take advantage of the views. To the casual observer, the location of each one may seem a bit random, as if they were scattered across the plot and allowed to remain where they fell. But in reality, they were carefully arranged to follow the contours of the landscape and create privacy for the inhabitants of each one.

“They are distributed across the plot according to the natural configuration of the terrain, altering it as little as possible,” say the architects. “The old stone walls and the existing trees were preserved — the houses were carefully placed around them. Combining this apparently arbitrary positioning with different orientations allowed the houses not to block each other’s views. From the balconies, behind the wooden slates, we can see the forest and, in some cases, the river.”

The project proves that modularity doesn’t have to mean cookie-cutter identical structures all in a row. The concrete prefab cabins consist of four different shapes and sizes, ranging from 300 square feet to 625 square feet. Some are oriented horizontally, others vertically, their layout determined by pre-existing trees and landscape features. Each one features inscrutable concrete facades pierced by geometric windows, with one all-glass facade screened with latticed wood for shade in the heat of the afternoon.

“Resorting to prefabricated structures was not just a choice, but the only efficient option we had to simplify the building process within such conditions,” the architects explain.

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Set along the Marra Marra Creek in New South Wales, Australia, this off-grid cabin draws from the area’s fascinating history and makes smart use of a plentiful local material: repurposed 200-year-old electrical posts made of ironbark timber. From the outside, the cabin’s square, window-covered facade and large awning give it a modest and understated appearance. But not only is the inside a study in minimalist beauty — the whole project is an exercise in respect for the land, its history, and the Darug People to whom it traditionally belongs.

“In 1788, Captain Cook and his fleet entered the delta of the Hawkesbury and the sheltered bay of Sydney,” the architects explain. “At the entrance of the Dyirabun (Hawkesbury) River, he was first welcomed by the Darug People who had been living on these banks since the beginning of times. Not long after, the British colonized the Australian territory, building a network of roads and electrical lines across the vast country. The electrical posts were made of some of the finest local hardwoods. Later on, these posts were slowly replaced by steel posts.”

“The small community of Marra Marra Creek was established by settlers in the early 18th century, most probably using inmate labor to cultivate the land. However, the electrical network never reached the creek, and the community remained ‘off the grid’ and only accessible by boat at high tide until today. Marra Marra Shack is built on the land of the Darug People. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which the house is set, their rich cultural heritage and deep connection to the country, and pay our respects to their elders past, present, and future. Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land.”

The architects augmented those 200-year-old electrical posts with spotted gum timber that grows in the Darug region for the beams of the ceiling and floor. In other parts of the space, repurposed turpentine timber from an old jetty built by settlers on the creek bank has become furniture and other small details. The cabin steps down along with the slope of the land, resulting in an interesting terraced interior around the home’s single large north-facing window. This window can also be lifted up using counterweights to open the space to the fresh air.

The only elements of the shack that aren’t made of timber are the thin fire-resistant fiber cement sheets on the facade. Instead of using energy and labor-intensive concrete footings, the architects pinned the footings to the sandstone bedrock. Best of all, both solar energy and water are collected on the roof, making the home entirely self-sustainable.

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Contributing to its awe-inspiring presence is the fact that it’s three stories tall – certainly not the kind of modest structure you’d expect to come upon while walking in the woods. Designed as a vacation home for a Finnish-born client who now lives in California, the stark modern cabin is visually inspired by its setting in remote Kontiolahti, within rocky terrain full of jagged boulders.

This sense of drama is integral to the experience, according to the architects. They want visitors to glimpse it through the trees as they approach on foot, wondering what on earth this “mystical dark object” could be. Its facade is entirely inscrutable by night, and in the daytime, it’s no less mysterious, albeit a little less intimidating.

The polyhedron-shaped building is made of prefabricated cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, a relatively new innovation in the world of engineered lumber that’s extra strong and lightweight, enabling timber buildings to take on all kinds of shapes and sizes. The thick wood walls are also air-insulated, and all functional and utility elements are disguised within them for a minimalist effect. Even the roof is made of solid wood, oiled to protect it from the elements.

Meteorite’s interior is enchanting in a whole different way, lined with pale wood and brightened up by natural light. Transparent acrylic railings along the stairs and landings add to that sense of airiness, while hardware-free black cabinetry is set within the walls to create a visual anchor. A central atrium rises all the way to the top floor, where a 107-square-foot skylight provides unobstructed views of the stars. A net on the third floor even offers a built-in hammock for lounging, reading, and napping.

“Meteorite is not a large house, but on the inside it represents a completely new 3-dimensional open-concept way of organizing living space,” says Ateljé Sotamaa co-founder Kivi Sotamaa. “Unlike traditional houses where each room has a specific predetermined purpose, Meteorite’s architecture supports more dynamic relationships of its residents and a variety of life situations. Digital design and new prefabrication and construction technologies enable the creation of unique, aesthetically high-quality ecological wood buildings that add experiential value to their locations.”

Client Ulla-Maaria Koivula, who’s the founder and CEO of education technology provider ThingLink, had the cabin built on her grandparent’s old homestead. It was initially envisioned as a vacation home that would be visited a few times a year, but due to the pandemic and California wildfires, the family decided to live in it full-time and work from home.

”Every building materializes our relationship with the natural environment,” Koivula says. ”My inspiration to have a unique wood house built in this country sprouted from the rocky hills and rugged woods of Koli, rich in erratic boulders that also served Finland’s defense during the Winter War. Meteorite reflects the connection my soul has to Finnish nature, and looking through one of its large windows to the misty fields around takes me back to the calm days of childhood.”

“We use the house as a creative space for remote work, hobbies, and hanging out together. In the old days, families gathered into a large horizontal kitchen space to be together. We now interconnect vertically with each other and with the surrounding nature. In this time and age with effective telecommunications and speed trains to the metropolitan region, this is a paradise for us to get settled into the good life.”

The post Meteorite is a Mysterious 3-Story Black Cabin in the Forests of Finland first appeared on Dornob.

Witzling’s very first cabin, erected on a friend’s property, cost just $800 to build. With an experimental approach to building and no fear of taking risks, Witzling came up with ever more ornate designs. One 80-square-foot cabin made of salvaged lumber features an undulating cedar shake roof. Elsewhere, a tiny camper built into the back of a pickup truck boasts complex angles, skylights, and a lofted bed inside. A 200-square-foot diamond-shaped cabin on the couple’s land, with its pointed roof stretching toward the sky, might be one of the coolest things you’ll ever see in the woods. But nothing tops the Castle Cabin, a series of connected two-story structures measuring a total of 900 square feet.

The crown jewel of Cabinland took 18 months to build, with Witzling, Underwood, and some friends and family members doing most of the work themselves. Triangular dormers, one of Witzling’s signature elements, poke out of each mossy roof, while the walls are covered in cedar shingles. Short walkways connect each volume to the next, and a private courtyard is tucked away in the center. As you’d imagine, the complex geometries of the rooflines create some seriously gorgeous interior ceilings.

Prior to building the Castle Cabin, Witzling and Underwood occupied a series of other cabins on the property, sleeping in one and using another as a freestanding closet and dressing room. Now, the Castle functions as their private home. Details include doors made of red alder, railing made from salvaged red cedar that was once the subfloor of a collapsed shanty on the property, and all the stunning wood grain you could ever ask for on every interior surface. The couple shared their design and building process on YouTube, and it’s a fun watch.

“We’re so happy to finally be sharing our newest creation with you!” The duo writes on the Cabinland Instagram. “The Castle Cabin is our forever home and has been a sanctuary to us. It took us 18 months to construct from start to finish and there are so many people who helped along the way that we can’t possibly list them all here… thank you for your patience everyone as we waited for just the right time to unveil our work to you. We’ve already started working on more projects here in the rainforest as well as Cabinland 2.0 in the desert of the Southwest and we look forward to sharing everything with you.”

If you’re in love with these fairytale creations, there are lots more photos and videos to be found on Instagram, many of which prominently feature Underwood (model and former Playboy Playmate of the Year). You’re also going to want to check out their dreamy handmade wood-fired hot tub.

The post Handmade “Castle Cabin” Brings Fairytale Vibes to the Pacific Northwest first appeared on Dornob.

Named “Wittgenstein’s Cabin,” the series draws inspiration from the secluded 1914 hut of Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Built on the steep shoreline of Lake Eidsvatnet in Skjolden, Norway, the cabin was purposefully located to be as remote as possible, serving as Wittgenstein’s distraction-free refuge where he wrote some of his most important works. To access it, he had to cross the lake by boat or walk over ice. González was stricken by the way in which the dwelling seemed to be in confrontation with the water and the imposing mountains that surround it.

“Wittgenstein worked on his studies of logic on a boat his friend David Pinsent sailed in the Sognefjord,” says González. “This fact this ‘event’ of the research, the learning and memorizing on a small aquatic means of transport, which serves as a writing desk, let me to consider the relationship of architecture with water, and of philosophy as an ‘amphibian’ endeavor. How would Wittgenstein frame that organic building, that architectonic construction in a liquid medium with the present media? What would contemporary cabins be like in diffracting settings of propagating waves, such as the Norwegian fjords?”

González imagines how these qualities would translate to contemporary buildings, giving them an amphibious nature that works with the water that surrounds them. Each design is its own strange refuge, difficult to access but providing occupants with the sort of hermitage most of us can only ever dream of having. If the water rose around them, parts of these buildings would become submerged, but remain functional. Some look like spaceships crash-landed into the landscape, others like avant-garde architectural experiments from the 1960s gone wild.

González began working on the Wittgenstein’s Cabin series in 2020, when concerns about the global pandemic led many of us to ponder the way isolation makes us feel: safer for some, and desperately lonely for others. The desire to live in a remote place is often at odds with the reality of our need for access to resources, services, and other people, as well as environmental concerns. The fact that these buildings look so alien in the pristine fjord setting creates a sense of tension, in contrast to the humility of Wittgenstein’s small wooden hut.

The Seville, Spain-based artist travels the world to take photographs of interesting buildings, which he later modifies and embellishes through illustration and digital design. He focuses on envisioning habitation for areas that tend to be overlooked, like slums, favelas, and areas prone to natural disasters. The goal is to craft stimulating, creative solutions that provide a positive social benefit.

The results may not be particularly realistic as far as actual construction goes, but they grant a dignity and gravitas to these spaces. González’s designs are whimsical and sculptural, reminding us that making the world more habitable even in the face of climate change can still be fun.

The post Wittgenstein’s Cabin: Strange Amphibious Dwellings Pop Up in Norwegian Fjords first appeared on Dornob.

Officially called the “Wicker House,” the cabin sits near the city of Noor in the northern Mazandaran region of Iran, a place where the architecture has evolved according to the natural climate conditions. Situated along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and adjacent to the Central Alborz mountain range, the weather is fairly temperate, with temperatures ranging from roughly 50 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Homes in the region have traditionally been built of stone, stucco, and natural roofing materials.

After examining the project requirements, the Iranian Shaygan Gostar Architectural Group decided to let the landscape determine the form of the home. “This architecture regarding the structure was completely dependent on nature – that is to say, for the construction of a building, all the components of the architecture natively have been prepared from the nature of the local region,” the Group says.

The house was originally to be built next to nearby agricultural land, but a survey of the site revealed that a spot overlooking a small dam and the surrounding landscape would be more suitable.

To satisfy the demand for a “new experience,” the architects designed an A-frame structure comprised of simple geometric forms. The available photos even include step-by-step instructions. After the main triangle was created, a box from the base was removed. Then a triangle was removed from each side for the window and doors, after which stilts and stairs were added. Finally, the patio box was added to the front of the house, with one side removed to provide water access to the patio.

To meet the requirement to conform to the local architecture, the materials were kept simple: wood and metal for the frame, straw, clay, and bulrush for the roofing and exterior sides. The architects explain that this maintained “the available space so that it can be in harmony with the rural houses left from the past. The long gable roof has been used at cabin form to be close to the rural housing typology.”

The interior is essentially one long, open space with a small bathroom and attached covered patio. Colorful rugs warm up the space, as well as a traditional fireplace with an elegant cylindrical flue that cuts through the angled roof line. Modern lighting and a small kitchenette make modern life attainable even in this more rustic structure. Floor-to-ceiling windows and doors leading to the terrace provide a perfect view of the pastoral landscape, including glowing sunsets that create beautiful pond reflections of the surrounding mountains.

Shaygan Gostar stayed true to its own personal architectural style with this build. In 2020, thy completed a concrete factory in North Kandovan with similar pop-out boxes and lots of clean lines.

The Wicker House is an example of how modern ideas can effortlessly flow through spaces without disrupting the aesthetic of the surrounding landscape.

The post Shaygan Gostar’s Wicker House Brings the A-Frame Cabin to Rural Iran first appeared on Dornob.

This portable modern cabin is based on the firm’s RCA-03 design, available in either 225 or 375-square-foot versions. Manufactured off-site and capable of being assembled within just four weeks, the fully furnished cabin consists of a system of both fixed and flexible elements. The layout of each cabin is the same, with a bathroom, kitchenette, and living space with built-in storage, but elements like lighting, fixtures, and material finishes can be customized.

The A24 itself is a 225-square-foot RCA-03 cabin tucked into a lush hillside on a coffee plantation in Bettagere Estate, Coorg, India as part of an upcoming resort called Betta Living. Clients Sunny Watwani and Adithya Roongta dreamed of building a series of cabins near their home city of Chennai, but didn’t want to go the usual route of building a resource-intensive, environment-disrupting vacation home. “There’s little or no regard for the surrounding nature,” Watwani told Architectural Digest. “People have blocked natural streams, cut down trees, and damaged the local biodiversity.”

Watwani and Roongta were adamant that not a single tree be cut down to accommodate the cabin, which was initially conceptualized by SPASM Design Architects with design development and execution completed by DDAA. As a result, the cabin sits lightly on the carefully chosen site, supported by four adjustable legs. The reflective glass and ACP metal siding panels help it blend into its environment, but the cabin feels thoroughly contemporary thanks to its sleek materials and jewel-like silhouette.

Inside, it offers guests a full bathroom with a shower, wardrobe, queen-size bed, and kitchenette foyer. Service equipment like the condenser unit is hidden behind the bathroom block. Walnut wood flooring, matte finish interior cladding, glowing amber pendant lights, and bespoke furniture give it a refined yet cozy atmosphere with incredible views of the surrounding mountain range.

“While the initial concept for A24 was designed by Spasm, DDAA worked to develop the design and prefabricate it in record time,” say the architects. “Every corner in the cabin strives to visually if not spatially connect with the natural context, be it the bathroom which comes furnished with all the modern amenities, or the kitchenette in the living space that captures stunning views of the valley.”

“The cabin’s most prominent features are its large, open facades that frame gorgeous views of the natural beauty outside. The 225-square-foot interior space reflects a minimal abode prioritized for comfort and design. A coherent design language resonates with all other cabins as well, and is perfect for sites located in the woods, the mountains, or along the shore.”

The post Off-Grid Living Gets Luxurious in This Tiny Modern Cabin by DDAA first appeared on Dornob.

The 355-square-foot “Cabana” was commissioned by a Brazilian steel company to highlight the adaptability of its product at Casa Cor 2021, the country’s annual interior and exterior design showcase. The project parameters required that the dwelling should be lightweight, easy to transport, and provide minimal interference with the surrounding environment.

Lead architect Barbara Fonseca created a two-story structure that includes an entire wall of windows to capitalize on the area’s picturesque nature views. The asymmetrical house is also compact and efficient. The entryway opens onto the living area, complete with an energy-saving wood burning stove. Directly behind the seating area is a small wall of kitchen cabinets including a built-in sink, two-burner stove, and small refrigerator.

To the left of the kitchenette is a ladder that leads to the upper level. Around the other side is the bathroom, which incorporates two showerheads mounted on the ceiling and a composting toilet. Bringing the outside in, an indoor botanical garden bed placed adjacent to the shower allows green plants to recycle some of the residents’ carbon dioxide emissions.

A single bedroom with room for a queen-size platform bed comprises the entire second floor. The warm, wooden walls here are broken up by two oversize windows to allow plenty of sunlight and fresh air in.

To keep the environmental impact low, Liga Arquitetura e Urbanismo chose to utilize steel beams, cements slabs with steel pile foundations, and reforested wood as their primary building materials. Rock wool was also incorporated in the walls and ceiling, itself a very effective stone-based insulation made from Basalt rock and recycled steel slag.

The construction plans call for the use of steel screws to join all the parts, preventing extra air pollution from the by-products of welding and drawing attention to another one of the versatile metal’s many benefits.

“With the cabin project we hope to introduce people to a new way of life: more modern, practical, and simple. And to show that steel is accessible for all types of buildings,” said Ascanio Merrighi, director of Soluções Usiminas, one of the largest steel companies in the western hemisphere and the sponsor for the Cabana design.

The tidy cabin also includes LED strip lighting and strategically-placed windows for maximum cross-ventilation. “All these actions aim to reduce the need to use air conditioning systems, improve performance in the use of artificial lighting, and consequently minimize the consumption of electricity,” the architects note.

The whole structure is made up of modules that are light enough for just two people to transport, making cranes and other construction vehicles unnecessary. Plus, all the pieces can fit simultaneously into one box truck, reducing the cost and carbon emissions required to get the materials on site.

Liga Arquitetura e Urbanismo is based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and was founded in 2015 with the aim of designing buildings that “transform information into matter.” The company has since gone on to produce many sleek and modern structures for both small and large commercial clients.

The post Cabana: A Tiny House That Can Be Carried and Constructed by Just Two People first appeared on Dornob.

As Buckminster Fuller himself explained, the tetrahedron represents “the minimum system of the Universe, and it turned out to be, then, omni-triangulated and we found that structures are always triangulated. Structure meant triangle and triangle meant structure, there were no other stable polygons. Therefore, the tetrahedron turned out to be the minimum structural system of the Universe.”

The tetrahedron is Fuller’s model of the simplest three-dimensional geometric system that can be used as the basis for other shapes, like his famous geodesic domes. He called this “cosmic logic of the structural mathematics strategies of nature,” which he spent much of his life studying and defining under the name “Synergetics.” In the case of Bow House, the tetrahedron helps to create a stable base for the cabin, takes full advantage of the small plot of land, and gives it an interesting silhouette.

“Casa Proa (Bow House in portugues) was designed by Atelier Marko Brajovic by a creative process inspired in triangular modulations on different scales and a tree house typology,” the architects say. “The 6x6x6 meters of equilateral triangular volume was installed at Praia do Rosa beach in Paraty (Brazil), located between a Mango tree, the traditional colonial house, and a major rock on steep waterfront terrain. The triangular geometry redundancy on the floor plan and section, as well on the tetrahedron roof system, promotes both structural and perceptive strategy. The architecture organizes a compact living space modulated in further sub-triangles and creates a visual pattern as much in the space and finishings.”

The architects also drew inspiration from traditional South American treehouses in designing this dreamy beach retreat. Though the cabin is on stilts rather than getting its load-bearing support from the surrounding trees, its perch on the slope just above vegetation like tropical flowers and palm trees creates a similar effect.

The main sleeping room is in the center of the cabin, looking straight out from the “prow” toward the ocean. The kitchen is tucked behind it, and in the two triangle points on either side are an entrance and a bathroom. The edge of the wraparound terrace serves as one big bench, so you can sit anywhere you like and look out at the forest, the water, or the hills on the other side.

Furniture custom-designed specifically for Bow House fills the interiors, including curtains made out of local shrimp fishing nets and wall lamps made of traditional bronze boat drains. It’s details like these that make it feel like a one of a kind getaway infused with the flavor of its unique Costa Verde location.

The post Tetrahedron Treehouse Peeks Out of the Trees Like the Prow of a Ship first appeared on Dornob.

Set in Shanghai’s Baoshan Wisdom Bay Science and Technology Park, the Book Cabin was designed by Professor Xu Weiguo of Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture and built by printing machines his team developed themselves. The cabin adds space for reading, book sharing, book shows, and academic discussions to the city’s Arts Bridge Space, a bookstore and venue offered by the Guanxi Normal University Press Group and ACC Art Books and Images Publishing.

From outside, the cabin almost looks like an enormous piece of dented pottery, or perhaps a paper wasp nest. Each thin layer of printed concrete is visible on its exterior surface for a textural ridged effect, and a wall that curves out to welcome you inside has an interestingly rippled surface of its own. Designed using MAYA software, the cabin can accommodate up to 15 people at a time.

No rigid framework or formwork went into the Book Cabin’s construction. Two sets of robotic arms simply laid out the fiber concrete material (specially developed by the team) one layer at a time until it completed the top of the domed roof. Each robot requires two people to operate, but just 4 to 5 people are needed to oversee the entire construction process, unlike the larger crews required for conventional building. The hollow walls are filled with thermal insulation mortar, and the ceiling is punctured by an operable skylight, so you can enjoy fresh air and read by the light of the sun.

“The design and construction of the Book Cabin show that 3D printing, as a way of intelligent construction, not only saves materials and manpower, but also has high construction efficiency and high construction speed, and can achieve irregular shape construction and ensure high quality of the construction,” says the team.

Professor Xu Weiguo previously designed and developed the world’s largest concrete 3D printed pedestrian bridge, which is also located in Shanghai’s Wisdom Bay Industrial Park. Measuring over 86 feet long and 12 feet wide, the bridge has a fluid shape inspired by the ancient Anti Bridge in Zhaoxian, China.

The professor’s team integrated innovative technologies like printing path generation, digital design, and advancements in 3D printing like a robot arm with a printing tool that won’t get clogged during long concrete printing sessions. It took 450 hours to complete and cost one-third less than a conventional bridge of similar size.

Weiugo explains that “the design of the pedestrian bridge adopts three-dimensional solid modeling. The bridge handrails are shaped like flowing ribbons on the arch, forming a light and elegant posture lying on the pond of Shanghai Wisdom Bay. The pavements of the bridge are generated from the form of brain corals, and white pebbles are filled in the voids of the pattern.”

The post Read Beneath a Giant Skylight in This 3D-Printed Concrete Book Cabin first appeared on Dornob.

Contrary to appearances, the architects didn’t kill any living trees or strip them of their leaves for this project. They instead created faux dead trees to serve as a decorative framework for each cluster, piercing through layers of elevated terraces and the rooftops of the cabins themselves. Each individual cabin faces a different direction, offering unique views of the vegetated mountains around them.

Located within the hotel district of Senbo Resort Hangzhou, these “nest residences” are envisioned as “a group of cabins landing on the branches,” almost as if they were living creatures themselves. The architects wanted to avoid over-realism by adding fake leaves to the trunks, deciding instead to mimic the way some animals choose to nest in dead trees. Since the clusters are nestled within the forest, however, they maintain a relatively convincing appearance.

The WH Studio team explains that “the design of stacking abstract volumes of residential prototype has precedents in Europe and Japan, but most are more inclined to geometrical manipulation and often limited to the internal experience. Based on the commercial character of this project and the mountain environment, we focused on the balance between abstraction and image, indoor and outdoor, geometry and nature.”

“The experience of the Tree House starts with ‘tree climbing.’ We pay special attention to the outdoor path and experience the zigzagging path like ‘climbing,’ outdoor terraces of different heights are like ‘tree branches’ for little rest, and the house is equivalent to the ‘fruit’ of the tree. The path has the experience of winding, light and shade changes, while the terrace is a comfortable outdoor activity space. Although each Tree House contains several artificial trees with structural functions, it is conceptually a ‘big tree’ composed of three elements of ‘path-platform-house.’”

The six cabins in each cluster assume one of two forms: a simple gabled style, and another with four rooftop slopes (with the latter meant to evoke the feel of a fairytale cabin). One style also has a balcony tucked beneath its roof for more introversion, while the other has a projecting balcony for more extroversion. The architects express regrets that their original design was a bit watered down once it was actually built. More specifically, they hoped for a stronger fairytale effect, with shingled roofs and slides leading from the higher cabins to the lower platforms.

Whether it was a result of budgeting or just the clients’ preferences, the architects’ original designs were ultimately altered for a more streamlined modern look. But that hasn’t dampened the popularity of the cabins, which have quickly become a glamorous check-in point for both celebrities and the wannabe Insta-famous. WH Studio theorizes that this warm reception comes from the cabins’ ability to meet “the psychological needs of people to return to primitive imagination.”

There’s definitely a little bit of an uncanny Disneyland feel to these tree house nests, but in a good way, and indeed, it would be hard to resist a selfie or two while staying here.

The post Stacked Treehouses at China’s Senbo Resort Designed to Mimic Nests first appeared on Dornob.