Tag Archives: Architecture

This 20-Foot Tiny Home Brings Authentic Japanese Design to Compact Living

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The tiny house movement has found a new voice in Japan, where Ikigai Collective is creating homes that honor traditional aesthetics while embracing modern minimalism. The Nozawa stands out as a stunning expression of Japanese design philosophy, built not as an homage from afar but as an authentic creation rooted in local culture and craftsmanship. Measuring just 20 feet in length, this compact dwelling challenges the North American trend toward ever-larger tiny homes that sometimes stretch beyond 50 feet. The Nozawa aligns more closely with European sensibilities, proving that thoughtful design can create livable spaces without expanding square footage. Its modest dimensions become an asset rather than a limitation when every inch serves a purpose.

The exterior combines durable steel cladding with wooden accents, creating visual warmth while standing up to varied weather conditions. Inside, wood dominates every surface, enveloping occupants in a cabin-like atmosphere that feels both grounded and inviting. The material choice speaks to Japanese design principles where natural elements bring spaces to life without unnecessary ornamentation. The design acknowledges that wild parties aren’t part of the plan, focusing instead on quiet comfort for two people who value intimate living spaces over expansive floor plans.

Designer: Ikigai Collective

The layout unfolds across two levels, with the ground floor dedicated to a tatami-style living room that requires a slight crouch to enter. This low-ceilinged space embraces the floor-level living tradition found in Japanese homes, where straw mat flooring and minimal furniture create rooms for contemplation and connection. A simple table anchors the space, offering flexibility for dining, working, or hosting intimate gatherings. The tatami concept draws from centuries of Japanese residential design, bringing that cultural heritage into a modern mobile dwelling that can adapt to contemporary lifestyles while maintaining traditional sensibilities.

The kitchen occupies its own zone nearby, impressively equipped for such a compact footprint. A large stainless steel sink pairs with a two-burner propane stove, while a full-size fridge and freezer eliminate the compromises often required in tiny living. Ample cabinetry keeps essentials organized, and a dining table extends the kitchen’s functionality as both a meal space and a potential work area. A sliding door reveals the bathroom, where a shower, flushing toilet, and petite sink handle daily needs efficiently within the tight quarters. The thoughtful placement of these essential spaces demonstrates how careful planning transforms limitations into livable solutions.

Above the living room, a loft bedroom accessed by a removable ladder provides sleeping quarters fitted with a double bed, storage solutions, and a wall-mounted television. The space maintains the low ceiling typical of loft designs but offers privacy without isolation, separated from the living areas yet connected to the home’s overall flow. The bedroom represents the final piece of the Nozawas’ puzzle, creating a complete home environment where two people can comfortably manage daily routines without feeling cramped or compromising on essential amenities.

Ikigai Collective positions the Nozawa at ¥11,300,000, roughly $72,000, with various customization options available for materials and furnishings. International availability remains unclear, making direct contact with the firm necessary for interested buyers outside Japan. The price reflects both quality construction and the specialized market it serves, targeting buyers who value authentic cultural design over generic tiny house trends. The Nozawa succeeds by staying true to its Japanese roots rather than attempting universal appeal. This focused vision creates a home that works beautifully within its cultural context, offering a template for how regional tiny house movements might develop their own distinct character and aesthetic language that honors local traditions while meeting contemporary needs.

The post This 20-Foot Tiny Home Brings Authentic Japanese Design to Compact Living first appeared on Yanko Design.

A Decade of Camping Led to This 747-Square-Foot Cozy River Retreat

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Dan Wheeler spent ten years sleeping in tents on his riverfront property before building anything permanent. The software engineer bought the land along Washington’s Wenatchee River in 2010, drawn by years of rafting trips with friends through the area’s rushing waters. Every camping trip reinforced what he already knew: this spot needed something, but only when the time felt right. Those years weren’t wasted time but rather an extended conversation with the landscape, understanding how light moved through the trees, where water pooled during spring runoff, and which views mattered most when morning broke over the mountains.

When Wheeler finally decided to build, he approached Seattle-based Wittman Estes with a clear vision. He wanted something modern and sculptural, a structure that would honor the decade he’d spent living simply on the land. What emerged is a 747-square-foot, two-story cabin elevated ten feet above the ground on concrete columns. The metal-clad wedge faces directly toward the river, its form shaped by the surrounding Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest. The angular design creates a striking profile against the forest backdrop while maintaining a compact footprint that respects the wilderness setting.

Designer: Wittman Estes

Architects Matt Wittman and Julia Frost designed the one-bedroom retreat to create what they call “a harmonious relationship between shelter and nature,” seeking interdependence between the ecosystem and the architecture itself. The elevated design serves multiple purposes beyond aesthetics. Lifting the cabin protects it from flooding and snow accumulation while minimizing the footprint on the forest floor. The positioning allows Wheeler to maintain the connection to the landscape he cultivated during those camping years, where cooking happened outdoors and shelter remained temporary.

Inside, the compact footprint forces intentionality. At just over 700 square feet, there’s no room for excess. The design reflects Wheeler’s desire to live with “less stuff,” embracing the simplicity he discovered through a decade of tent living before walls and windows entered the equation. The scale might seem small by contemporary standards, but the visual connection to the river and forest expands the perceived space dramatically. Floor-to-ceiling windows blur the boundary between interior and exterior, making the surrounding wilderness feel like additional living area.

What started as a weekend escape transformed into something unexpected. Wheeler now lives in the cabin full time, proving that downsizing doesn’t mean sacrificing quality of life. The transition from occasional retreat to permanent home happened gradually, much like the decade-long deliberation that preceded construction. The move represents a fundamental shift in how Wheeler defines comfort and necessity, stripping away the accumulated possessions that filled his previous life.

The Wenatchee River Cabin stands as proof that restraint can produce better results than expansion. By waiting, observing, and understanding the land first, Wheeler and Wittman Estes created something that feels inevitable rather than imposed. The cabin doesn’t fight its environment or demand attention. It simply exists where it should, elevated above the forest floor, facing the river that made Wheeler fall in love with the place fifteen years ago. The project demonstrates that the best architecture sometimes requires patience, letting years of experience inform design decisions rather than rushing to build.

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A Seven-Square-Meter Office on Wheels Redefines Mobile Workspaces in Buenos Aires

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Parked in the courtyard of a private home in Buenos Aires, the Castillo Mobile Office challenges everything we expect from workplace architecture. Morsa Taller has distilled the essence of mobility into seven square meters, creating a structure that moves between sites with the ease of rolling luggage yet operates with the seriousness of a permanent studio.

The design reads like architectural origami. Six prefabricated pieces arrive separately, then snap together within a single day using nothing more than a screwdriver and a riveter. Four detachable facade panels frame strategic openings for light and air. A curved roof caps the composition, channeling rainwater while nodding to the rounded profiles of Buenos Aires’ iconic buses. The wheeled base turns the entire volume into a vehicle of sorts, ready to relocate from backyard to rooftop, from residential plot to rural outpost.

Designer: Morsa Taller

What makes Castillo remarkable is its refusal to compromise on craft despite its temporary nature. Every junction required its own insulation and mechanical connection, transforming the project into an exercise in layered logic. The team at Morsa Taller, working alongside fabricator Santiago Legnini, custom-built each interior element, from carpentry to storage systems to equipment mounts. The result feels less like a portable shed and more like an inhabitable machine, where form follows the internal demands of function rather than external architectural conventions.

The structure draws from Morsa Taller’s broader practice in material investigation and objectual construction, led by architect Alejandra Esteve, who describes herself as both designer and welder. This hands-on approach permeates the Castillo project, where metalworking expertise translates into precise modular connections that allow independence and integration to coexist.

Currently stationed in Buenos Aires, the mobile office represents a shift in how workspace can respond to contemporary work patterns. It doesn’t anchor professionals to fixed addresses but instead follows them, adapting to changing needs without sacrificing quality or comfort. The seven-square-meter footprint proves that small doesn’t mean compromised when design treats constraints as creative fuel. Castillo demonstrates that architecture can be nomadic without being provisional, compact without being cramped, and prefabricated without losing its soul.

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A Home That Stays Rooted: This Multigenerational Vietnamese House Preserves What Urbanization Erases

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In the outskirts of Hanoi, where sprawling urbanization steadily encroaches on traditional village life, Trung Tran Studio has completed a residence that refuses to erase what came before it. The Nang House, a 270-square-meter dwelling for three generations, sits quietly among established homes and mature trees, each element of the natural landscape carefully preserved rather than cleared away. Completed in 2025, this project emerges at a moment when rapid development threatens to break down the traditional rural structure that has defined these communities for generations.

The architecture speaks through brick, that most fundamental of building materials, reimagined through contemporary forms. Textured walls rise in modular patterns, their surfaces catching light at different angles throughout the day. Arches and circular openings punctuate the structure, creating portals that guide movement while framing views of the gardens beyond. The material choice feels both pragmatic and poetic, grounding the home in local building traditions while pushing toward something unmistakably modern. High wooden ceilings and curved details highlight the angularity of the masonry, creating an interplay between rigid geometry and organic warmth.

Designer: Trung Tran Studio

What makes this project remarkable is its relationship with the site. Trees that have stood for years remain rooted in their original positions, their trunks accommodated by deliberate notches carved into rooflines. The canopy spreads over a central courtyard, blurring boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. This garden becomes the heart of the home, a breathing space where sunlight filters through leaves and generations gather. The design creates an airy, earthy dwelling where indoor and outdoor zones converge seamlessly, allowing natural ventilation to flow through the porous brick facade.

The floor plan unfolds as a series of carefully sequenced rooms wrapped around a central void. Living areas, dining spaces, and a worship room occupy the core, treated as a continuous zone for family life. Light enters through narrow clerestory windows set high along pitched ceilings, creating small, shifting patterns across the brick surfaces. The effect is subtle but transformative, making the walls appear alive as the sun moves overhead. This inner zone holds the main living functions, where textured brick walls meet timber elements at concise junctions.

The two-storey structure accommodates five bedrooms total, with four extending toward the rear of the property. Each is modest in size yet warm in character, shaped by timber ceilings and brick surfaces that create intimate, comfortable spaces. Framed views of the garden connect every room to the landscape, maintaining visual continuity throughout the home. The bedrooms are interspersed with three distinct garden spaces that serve different functions for the multigenerational household. This careful zoning allows privacy when needed while encouraging interaction in shared areas, creating a home that expands and contracts according to the rhythms of family life.

Trung Tran Studio’s approach resists the typical pattern of development in rapidly changing rural areas, where new construction often means wholesale clearing and starting fresh. Instead, the Nang House demonstrates how contemporary architecture can work with existing conditions, respecting what’s already there while creating something entirely new. This is architecture that understands context without being constrained by it, honoring tradition while refusing nostalgia. In a landscape where urbanization threatens to flatten everything in its path, the Nang House offers a different model, one where old trees and new walls coexist naturally, proving that progress needn’t come at the cost of erasure.

The post A Home That Stays Rooted: This Multigenerational Vietnamese House Preserves What Urbanization Erases first appeared on Yanko Design.

Canada’s Tallest Building Takes Shape as SkyTower Reaches Historic 100-Storey Mark

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Toronto’s skyline is witnessing a transformation that will redefine Canadian architecture for generations. The Pinnacle SkyTower, designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects, has become the first building in Canada to surpass 100 storeys, marking a pivotal moment in the country’s architectural evolution. When completed in 2026, the supertall will stand at 351.85 metres across 106 floors, claiming the title of Canada’s tallest building.

David Pontarini, founding partner of the Toronto-based firm, envisioned the tower as a direct response to its prominent location at the foot of Yonge Street. The design needed to make a statement worthy of Canada’s longest street while respecting the unique waterfront context. What emerged was a 12-sided crystalline form that catches light from every angle, its glazed surfaces and tapered profile creating a sculptural presence that shifts throughout the day. The geometric complexity serves more than aesthetic ambitions. The dodecahedron shape helps the tower withstand powerful winds sweeping across Lake Ontario, while vertical fins emphasize its soaring height. A distinctive flying buttress connects the tower to its podium base, where horizontal banding creates a visual counterpoint to the vertical thrust above. The podium’s curving form mirrors the natural bend of the lakeshore, anchoring the tower in its surroundings.

Designer: Hariri Pontarini Architects

Engineering a building this tall presented extraordinary challenges. Project architect Nadine El-Gazzar and her team grappled with wind pressure, structural requirements, and the stack effect, which pulls air upward through elevator shafts at tremendous speeds. A custom-designed tuned mass damper will counteract the building’s sway, ensuring comfort for residents on the uppermost floors. These technical solutions remain invisible to observers, allowing the tower’s elegant profile to take center stage.

The mixed-use program reflects contemporary urban living. Over 950 residential units range from intimate 520-square-foot homes to expansive 2,300-square-foot residences. A 220-room Le Méridien hotel occupies the lower twelve floors, while a restaurant on the 106th floor will offer unparalleled views at the same elevation as the CN Tower’s main observation deck. Amenities include a pool, yoga studio, and fitness center, with retail connections to Toronto’s underground pedestrian network at street level.

The project’s ambition grew during development. Originally planned at 95 storeys, a variance request in March 2025 added eleven floors, pushing the design into record-breaking territory. Construction has progressed steadily since groundwork began, with the exterior cladding now substantially complete on the lower sections. The tower rises from the Pinnacle One Yonge development, which transformed the former Toronto Star site into a six-building complex that’s reshaping the city’s waterfront.

Environmental considerations shaped key infrastructure decisions. The development connects to the Enwave Deep Lake Water Cooling system, which draws frigid water from Lake Ontario’s depths for efficient climate control. Pinnacle International president Michael De Cotiis captured the significance: “We have created a landmark, one that is making history not only for Toronto, but for all of Canada.” As SkyTower climbs toward completion, it represents both technical achievement and architectural ambition, a jewel-like form that will anchor Toronto’s skyline for decades to come.

The post Canada’s Tallest Building Takes Shape as SkyTower Reaches Historic 100-Storey Mark first appeared on Yanko Design.

Two Homes, One Shell: Inside Japan’s Most Ingenious Tiny House

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Nestled in the mountains of Nozawaonsen, Nagano, a young company called Ikigai Collective is rewriting the rules of compact living. Their latest creation, the Yamabiko, challenges everything we thought we knew about tiny houses. At just 6.6 meters long, this remarkable dwelling doesn’t squeeze one living space into its metal frame. It fits two. The concept sounds impossible until you see it. Two front doors hint at the Yamabiko’s clever secret: a perfectly mirrored layout that splits the home down the middle. Enter through the left door, and you’ll find a complete living space with a lofted bedroom, compact kitchen, and cozy lounge area. The right side offers an identical setup, reversed like a reflection. Between them sits a shared bathroom, the only space where the two halves meet.

This isn’t just architectural cleverness for its own sake. Ikigai Collective designed the Yamabiko specifically for staff accommodation in Japan’s seasonal resort towns. Ski instructors, hospitality workers, and summer camp employees often require housing that strikes a balance between privacy and efficiency. The Yamabiko delivers both. Two people can live independently under one roof, each with their own kitchen and sleeping loft, while sharing a single bathroom and utility connection. The exterior speaks to Japanese minimalism through its utilitarian Galvalume steel cladding. This durable material handles everything from heavy mountain snow to coastal humidity, aging gracefully while maintaining its modern edge. The design doesn’t shout for attention. It simply exists, blending into mountain landscapes and urban lots with equal ease.

Designer: Ikigai Collective

Inside, the spaces feel surprisingly complete despite their compact footprint. Each kitchen comes equipped with a two-burner propane stove and sink. The living rooms feature built-in seating and small tables. Loft bedrooms provide privacy without wasting precious floor space below. Every centimeter serves a purpose, reflecting the Japanese principle of functional beauty. The shared bathroom sits strategically between both living areas, creating the connection point where the two mirrored halves meet while maintaining the independence of each space.

Ikigai Collective keeps customization at the forefront. Buyers can select their color scheme, choose between flooring options, design their shower layout, and pick between standard or composting toilets. The starting price of ¥9,900,000 positions the Yamabiko as a serious housing solution rather than a lifestyle experiment. The timing feels right. Japan is slowly embracing tiny living as urban space grows scarcer and younger generations seek alternatives to traditional housing. Ikigai Collective was founded just two years ago by people who came to Japan and fell in love with its culture. They’re not just importing Western tiny house trends. They’re creating something distinctly Japanese, built for Japanese needs and sensibilities.

For those curious to experience the Yamabiko firsthand, Ikigai Collective operates a showroom village in Iiyama where visitors can book overnight stays. The facility includes wellness amenities like a sauna, letting guests test the tiny house lifestyle before committing. The Yamabiko proves that innovation in tiny living isn’t about shrinking everything down. Sometimes it’s about reimagining how space can serve multiple lives at once.

The post Two Homes, One Shell: Inside Japan’s Most Ingenious Tiny House first appeared on Yanko Design.

192 Sliding Blocks Let Anyone Sculpt This Pavilion Into New Shapes

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Most architecture, even the wildest parametric forms, is fixed the day it opens and stays that way until it is renovated or demolished. Michael Jantzen points out that exciting spaces are often “fixed in time” while people’s needs and desires keep shifting. The Malleable Space Pavilion is a small, clear argument for buildings that can change as easily as furniture, where space becomes something you can push, pull, and rewrite whenever you want.

The Malleable Space Pavilion is an experimental interactive structure made from a very simple kit of parts. Two tall gray support columns anchor the design, and 192 white horizontal elements, 96 per side, are mounted on tracks between them. In the default state, they form two opposing blocks with a narrow canyon between them, a calm, almost minimalist object sitting in a field that reads more like land art than a building you can enter.

Designer: Michael Jantzen

Every white element can slide in and out independently, letting visitors pull pieces to create steps, ledges, and overhangs. Jantzen describes configurations ranging from symmetrical simplicity to chaotic complexity, and the same hardware can read as a tunnel, a grotto, or a solid bar depending on how far the elements are extended. Space is literally carved out of the blocks in real time, turning a static object into a responsive spatial machine.

One moment, you walk into a symmetrical canyon with terraced walls and a rectangular skylight, the next you find yourself in a jagged, pixelated chamber where light leaks through irregular gaps. The elements double as benches and low roofs, so you can pull out a seat or shade with the same gesture. The pavilion becomes a place to sit, play, and experiment rather than just pass through, with every configuration suggesting new ways to occupy the same footprint.

Pushing and pulling the elements is performative; visitors become visible agents of change. The stepped profiles feel like editing a low-resolution 3D model, but at a human scale and with your hands instead of a mouse. The pavilion records those actions as a temporary composition, so every group leaves behind a different spatial drawing until someone else comes along and rewrites it, turning the structure into a constantly evolving collaboration between architect and occupants.

Jantzen believes that a more advanced architecture is one that can be changed in time, and this pavilion sits within his series of transformable structures. Questions remain about full-scale mechanics, durability, and accessibility, but the value here is conceptual clarity. The project makes adaptability tangible and playful, turning a big conversation about flexible buildings into something you can push, pull, and sit on, rather than leaving it abstract and theoretical.

The Malleable Space Pavilion treats architecture less like a finished sculpture and more like an instrument waiting to be played. Instead of a single author deciding what the space should be, every visitor gets to compose their own version for a while. For a design culture used to talking about responsive environments in abstract terms, there is something refreshing about a pavilion that simply hands you the handles and lets you reshape it yourself, making change the default rather than the exception.

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A Living Sphere: Japan’s Self-Contained Food Ecosystem Points to Urban Agriculture’s Future

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Perched at the Osaka Health Pavilion during Expo 2025, a translucent dome hums with life. Inside, tomatoes ripen above brackish water while pufferfish swim below, their waste feeding the plants that clean their home. This is “Inochi no Izumi,” or “Source of Life,” a 21-foot-high sphere that reimagines how cities might feed themselves. The dome’s genius lies in its vertical arrangement. Four water compartments form the base: seawater, brackish water, and two freshwater tanks. Each supports aquatic species matched to its salinity, from marine groupers to freshwater sturgeon. Above each tank rises a corresponding tier of hydroponic crops, creating four parallel ecosystems stacked inside a single structure.

The nutrient cycle starts underwater. Fish excrete ammonia-rich waste that specialized microbes convert into nitrites, then nitrates. Pumps lift this nutrient-loaded water to feed the plants directly overhead. As roots absorb nitrogen compounds, they return purified water to the tanks below. Nothing leaves the system. Nature’s wetland cycling becomes an engine for food production. The broader the range of compatible species, the more resilient and self-sufficient the ecosystem becomes. That diversity mirrors natural systems but remains optimized for human consumption.

Designer: VikingDome, Osaka Metropolitan University’s Plant Factory R&D Center & Tokyo University of Marine Science & Technology

Each layer hosts plants suited to its water source. Salt-tolerant halophytes like sea asparagus and sea purslane grow above the seawater tank housing red seabream and black porgy. Sea grapes flourish in the saltwater itself. Move up a tier, and semi-tolerant tomatoes thrive on brackish water where Japanese pufferfish and ornamental carp glide. The freshwater zones support functional vegetables—nutrient-dense herbs and lettuces—while edible flowers, including nasturtium and marigold crown the top tier, their beds rotating via built-in motors to optimize light exposure.

The dome’s outer skin consists of transparent ETFE panels stretched across 245 steel structural bars connected by 76 joints. This geodesic framework, built using VikingDome’s T-STAR system, covers 1,378 square feet while weighing just over two tons. The entire structure arrived at Yumeshima Island on three pallets. Its design maximizes sunlight penetration while maintaining stable internal temperatures, creating a microclimate where multiple growing zones coexist.

Developed with Osaka Metropolitan University’s Plant Factory R&D Center and Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, this system demonstrates agricultural biodiversity at work. The practical applications extend beyond exhibition. Dense urban centers with limited ground space could host these modular systems on rooftops or in narrow lots. Land-poor regions where traditional farming struggles could gain food independence. Disaster-prone areas might deploy closed-loop domes for decentralized production unaffected by soil contamination or water scarcity.

What makes Source of Life compelling isn’t revolutionary technology. The core principle—aquaponics—has existed for decades. Rather, it’s the elegant integration of ecological understanding with space-efficient design. Commercial agriculture often chases yield through inputs: fertilizers, pesticides, energy. This dome inverts that logic, asking what happens when we design with nature’s cycles instead of against them. As cities grow and climate pressures mount, feeding urban populations sustainably demands fresh thinking. This geodesic greenhouse suggests one path forward: upward, inward, and circular.

The post A Living Sphere: Japan’s Self-Contained Food Ecosystem Points to Urban Agriculture’s Future first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Off-Grid Sauna on Wheels Is Touring the UK’s Wildest Landscapes

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Rupert McKelvie’s latest creation sits somewhere between architectural statement and wellness refuge. The Aquila, a mobile sauna from his Devon-based studio Out of the Valley, transforms the traditional Finnish ritual into something you can tow behind a truck. It’s taking heat therapy to lakesides, coastal cliffs, and forest clearings across the United Kingdom, proving that proper bathing culture doesn’t need permanent foundations.

Built on a double-axle trailer measuring just 3.8 meters in length, this compact structure seats six people and runs entirely off-grid. Black larch cladding covers the exterior, treated using yakisugi, the Japanese charring technique that both protects the wood and creates that striking carbonized finish. The roof folds down using a mechanical system that took multiple prototypes to get right. McKelvie admits it was the hardest part of the build, requiring constant testing to ensure the mechanism could handle repeated setup and breakdown without fail.

Designer: Out of the Valley

McKelvie started Out of the Valley six years ago after building his first timber cabin as a personal escape near Dartmoor National Park. That project sparked something bigger, evolving into a full design-build practice focused on handcrafted structures that work with natural materials rather than against them. The Aquila marks the studio’s most ambitious output so far, earning recognition this year with a longlisting at the Dezeen Awards 2025 in the Product Design category for Health, Wellbeing and Wearables. It competed against over 4,300 entries from 89 countries.

Inside, thermally modified alder lines the walls, chosen specifically because it can handle extreme temperature shifts without warping or splitting. A 16-kilowatt Narvi wood-burning stove anchors the space, delivering the kind of authentic heat that electric alternatives struggle to replicate. Solar panels power subtle LED lighting throughout, keeping the unit functional wherever it gets parked. At the rear, a panel drops down to form an entrance deck, while an integrated cold shower completes the traditional contrast bathing experience that sauna purists swear by.

The design packs in clever details without feeling overworked. Perforated storage at the hitch end holds firewood for multiple sessions. The folding roof protects everything during transport and creates visual drama when deployed. The compact footprint gets into remote locations while maintaining comfortable capacity inside, which isn’t an easy balance to strike when you’re working with trailer dimensions.

Over recent months, Out of the Valley has partnered with lifestyle brands Passenger Clothing and Canopy & Stars to tour the Lake District National Park. Another unit spent a season with Unique Homestays, giving vacation rental guests an unexpected amenity. McKelvie and his team handcraft each unit in their workshops, with a current lead time sitting at four months. Pricing is available on request, reflecting the bespoke nature of every build and options for customizations, including door orientation and heating preferences.

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Rewild Homes Just Built the Sustainable House Eco-Buyers Always Wanted

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Nestled away in Priors Hall, Corby, The Thicket by Rewild Homes is doing something different with sustainable housing. This Northamptonshire development isn’t trying to be just another eco-project with a few solar panels slapped on the roof. The name itself comes from the woodland character that shaped the entire design, which tells you something about how seriously they’ve taken the environmental angle here. It’s part of a broader movement in the area, but The Thicket stands out for actually following through on its green promises.

Rewild Homes has built its reputation on refusing to choose between sustainability and livability, and you can see that playing out across this development. The homes manage to be energy efficient and environmentally responsible without feeling like you’re camping indoors or sacrificing modern conveniences. They’ve used sustainable materials and construction methods throughout, but not in that performative way some developers do when they’re really just ticking boxes for marketing purposes. The approach here feels more genuine, like someone actually thought about how these choices would affect daily life.

Designer: Rewild Homes

The location in Priors Hall puts residents in the middle of a community that’s become something of an experiment in sustainable urban planning. Corby isn’t exactly where you’d expect to find cutting-edge green development, which makes The Thicket more interesting. The area gives you access to shops, schools, and everything else you need without bulldozing every tree in sight. There’s a balance here between practical living and maintaining the natural features that make the place feel less like a housing estate and more like somewhere you’d actually want to spend time.

What makes The Thicket work is that sustainability isn’t an afterthought. Large windows bring in natural light so you’re not constantly flipping switches during the day. The homes are positioned to take advantage of natural heating and cooling instead of relying entirely on mechanical systems. Materials were chosen for durability and low environmental impact, creating spaces that look contemporary without feeling like they’ll be dated in five years. These aren’t revolutionary ideas individually, but together they add up to homes that function differently from standard new builds.

The woodland aesthetic goes beyond surface decoration. The designers preserved existing natural features and integrated them into the development instead of clearing everything and starting from scratch. This creates an actual connection to the surrounding landscape rather than the token green space most developments offer. Walking around The Thicket, you get the sense that someone understood sustainable living means more than reducing emissions—it’s about creating environments where people can live comfortably alongside nature instead of constantly working against it.

For buyers trying to square environmental concerns with practical housing needs, The Thicket offers a legitimate option. It’s aimed at people who want to make better choices but aren’t willing to compromise on quality of life to do it. As more homeowners factor climate impact into their decisions, developments like this prove there’s real demand for innovation beyond greenwashing. Rewild Homes has positioned itself to meet that demand, and The Thicket shows they understand how to deliver sustainable housing that people actually want to live in, not just admire from a distance.

The post Rewild Homes Just Built the Sustainable House Eco-Buyers Always Wanted first appeared on Yanko Design.