Nowadays almost anything and everything is eco-friendly and sustainable, so why not our vacation getaways? Inspired by this ideology, Finnish designer Robin Falck created an A-frame mirrored holiday house, ‘Nolla’. Literally meaning ‘zero’ in Finnish, Nolla was designed by Falck for Finnish renewable energy company Neste’s ‘Journey to Zero’ campaign, in an effort to build a world with minimal emissions. Functioning entirely on renewable energy, the cabin is located on the Vallisaari island, near Helsinki. It has been built entirely using sustainable materials such as local plywood and pine. In an attempt to encourage visitors to maintain a ‘zero waste lifestyle’, every element has been designed with the hope of not leaving behind any carbon footprint. Covered by mirrors and supported by wooden stilts, it excludes modern commodities. Nolla is powered by emission-free solar panels, and a Wallas stove that runs on Neste’s MY renewable diesel is provided for heating and cooking purposes. There is no indoor bathroom facility, but outdoor dry toilets are available at the Vallisaari port. Fresh water is also available there!

Designer: Robin Falck

“The culture of repairing things is disappearing, and we’re quick to buy a replacement rather than fix what we already have – but that’s not a very sustainable way of living,” Falck said. “I find modern-day helplessness and the inability to make things with our own hands slightly scary, so I wanted to make the cabin easily repairable and thus give it an infinite number of life cycles.” Hence he adopted a ‘cradle to cradle structure’, wherein the mobile cabin can be assembled, disassembled and transported without the use of any heavy machinery.

Held together by screws, the cabin can be opened and put back together like a puzzle! (not to mention it’s built entirely from timber) This ensures that the cabin can be transported and erected on any terrain, without disturbing the surrounding environment, and also leaves eco-systems exactly the way they were found!

“The cottage represents an alternative lifestyle without the hassle of modern amenities,” Falck explains. “It represents an approach to living where the focus is more on what lays on the outside of a dwelling, rather than within…most importantly, the cabin enables life in the realm of nature, from which I feel people have become alienated.”

In a world where nature has been sidelined, Falck has put in his all to create a relaxing getaway, with a much-needed opportunity to connect with nature! Having lived in the cabin himself to test the structure, Falck commented “that a place the size of a tent is all we really need for living” and I couldn’t agree more! In 2019 when innovations and complexity are running the world, is it such a bad idea to take a step back and immerse ourselves in some Earthly simplicity? I think not!