The cabin in the woods: from primeval myths to assembly kits for living in nature

Proposed by the Japanese company Muji, Muji Hut is a small 9 square metre prefabricated house: with a democratic price and sustainable technology, it offers everyone the possibility of taking retreat in a small but comfortable personal place, from the woods to the city. The construction is inspired by the Kyosho jutaku, the traditional Japanese micro-houses that often make a virtue of necessity, transforming tiny spaces into cosy environments. The outer walls are given enhanced resistance and durability by a burned hardwood cladding, finished with an oil surface treatment. The interior surfaces of the hut, without any treatment, allow for various forms of customisation.

Aska means "ash" in Icelandic and the small 21 square metre building recalls in its name the ashes and lava covering the local landscape. The design approach explicitly refers to the typology of the traditional Icelandic house: simple, functional, with a green roof (the typical turf) and made of natural materials, where the handicraft component is a fundamental part of the construction process. The entire construction is made of wood, a natural material par excellence. The exteriors are covered with pine wood slats burnt according to the ancient Japanese technique of Shou-sugi ban which guarantees the material, subjected to carbonization, better resistance to atmospheric and organic agents; in contrast with the dark colour of the façades, the interiors are in light pine wood, guaranteeing brightness and warmth to the rooms.

The essential construction with a rectangular layout, suspended on stilts and surrounded by vegetation, is a clear homage to the vernacular culture and the craft of the owner, a furniture maker: the shell, supported by a metal structure, is made entirely of local wood according to the local tradition. In this project, the ancient Japanese technique of charring Shou-sugi ban, besides prolonging the life cycle of wood for interiors ad exteriors, aims in this case to give the surfaces a soft, warm character thanks to the irregular shades and imperfections that only manual craftmanship can give.

The work designed by llabb, inspired by Scandinavian cabins and Japanese tea rooms, with its 12 square metres can be lived in as a studio, a shelter or an accommodation. The essential parallelepiped volume, suspended on metal uprights and accessible by a walkway, seems to float in the void and “tiptoes” into the landscape, minimising the building's ecological footprint. The entire construction, prefabricated and dry-assembled, is made with a modular technology that favours maximum flexibility and editability in scale, according to the context.

Highly standardised, prefabricated, light, modular, easily assembled, reversible thanks to dry technology and therefore environmentally friendly: this is how ANNA cabin is presented, a project descirbed by its designer as “a suitcase containing standard elements such as a bed, a bathroom, water and sewage, electricity”. The work is in fact conceived to offer a basic kit for everyday life in a low-tech key. The building is characterised by two sliding shells offering visual control, light and wind shielding, and cross-flow ventilation depending on geographical context, climate and exposure. The structure is designed for maximum comfort thanks to patented insulation and sealing technologies that make the dwelling strong, durable and adaptable to any location. 

Rather than making use of refined domotic and digital technologies, ANNA Cabin works exclusively in muscular mode to facilitate that natural process of assonance between body and mind, which is the subject of studies by neuroscience and which, together with contact with nature, is indispensable for any process of inner balance. ANNA Cabin, the production of which is also being developed digitally, has recently evolved into other versions: the ANNA Collection, the most luxurious, and the ANNA ONE, the most basic which, supplied with an assembly kit, can be entirely assembled independently, like a 1:1 scale model. The only problem: high purchasing cost.

A hytte (a Nowegian word meaning “small wooden house” and indicating the typical mountain hut of Nordic countries;the word is recall by the German Hutte) in the woods of Alsace: this is the appearance of the work recalling a typical Scandinavian structure designed by Norwegian architect Reiulf Ramstad for a French-Danish client. The project consists of fourteen cabins punctuating the hillside, arranged on stilts and entirely removable, to preserve as much of the surrounding landscape as possible. 

All volumes are clad in untreated, locally sourced chestnut wood, punctuated by large openings. Four distinct typologies characterise the polygonal volumes, developed on a single level, towering and slender or more spacious. The interiors are minimal and rustic, qualified by light wood and built-in furniture.

The intervention consists of a sequence of four units dedicated to tourist accommodation and clearly inspired by the archetype of the hut in the woods. The constructions, located in an independent position on the natural slope and raised from the ground by about 2.50 m, are made entirely of wood, used in the shell with more or less dense planking to control solar radiation and depending on the level of privacy required by the  rooms.

The project involves the construction of eleven cabins of four types – from 28 to 58 square metres – located in a context of complex mountainous orography. The constructions can be used both as tourist accommodation and as small houses, so that the complex can be used all over the year. The concrete and wood cabins are the result of an entirely standardised production process that has made it possible to reduce costs and construction times and to have as little impact as possible on the context, also thanks to the easy assembly operations: the project has in fact used Gomos System, a modular system designed by the studio itself, offering complete modules with interior and exterior finishes, insulation, doors and windows, water and electricity systems and furnishings.

Laboratoire's project in a tourist facility in a wooded area near Liège concerns the construction of a series of single-family cabins distributed throughout the property. The architecture refers to the iconography of the hut, evoked by the essential volume reinterpreted here in a contemporary key thanks to the use of translucent glass which dematerialises the volumes. The studio chose Uglass industrial glass, a useful material for creating walls with a high light yield and maintaining a high degree of efficiency, thanks to its excellent performance in terms of acoustics, safety and thermal insulation. Its use in roofs also helps to diffuse sunlight from different angles.

The complex is placed into the steep topography of the Hertforshire hills, where the client's family has been running a farm for decades, and includes three holiday homes. The biunivocal relationship with the landscape and the local culture is the key to the interpretation of the project: the gabled volume and the dark wood cladding on the exterior weave a dialogue with the built forms and colours of the context. Since only the flat upper part of the steeply sloping site was accessible for construction, the holiday homes were built entirely using off-site technology and assembled in situ on pre-prepared foundations, in a short time and with minimal disruption to the site. Each unit includes a ready-to-transport basic kit with pre-installed bathrooms and kitchens, a wet underfloor heating system, wiring and a shell complete with windows.