Tag Archives: cozy cabins

This cabin can easily transported to remote places & reduces construction carbon emissions!

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Ever since the pandemic, escapes to secluded local destinations have become the norm which means more cabin designs for us to explore! This is Cabana, a compact and functional cabin that is designed to facilitate a unique experience. Cabana was made to fit in any space and location while making sure it had minimum impact on the environment which guided every detail such as the choice of materials or the process of assembly. The black, boxy unit with contrasting warm wooden interiors feels like the perfect place to read my entire pile of unread books for days!

It offers a cozy refuge from the chaos of our fast-paced lives. Since reducing construction impact on the surrounding was a priority, the team chose steel, cement slabs, and reforested wood for the structure as well as sealing materials. This minimized material waste through leftovers, water consumption, and carbon emissions which increased the overall energy efficiency of Cabana from design to construction and ultimately its usage.

Cabana has a very warm ambiance which it owes to the thermal, lighting, and acoustic comfort provided by rock wool on the walls and ceiling, as well as large PVC frames – a material known for its excellent insulation – that are strategically positioned in order to facilitate cross-ventilation. I would have loved to see a rainwater harvesting system or solar panels to make it more energy-efficient and sustainable.

Additionally, the use of LED strips and a wood-burning stove also help maintain a cozy atmosphere without using excessive energy. “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,” elaborates the team.

Cabana was developed so that it could bring a sustainable cabin design to remote locations. To make that easier, it was divided into multiple modules that could be carried by two people which eliminated the need for cranes and allowed the cabin to be assembled quickly and in usually hard-to-access places.

It can also be transported with the aid of just one box truck which reduces the logistics and all the adversities caused in the process. The metallic pile foundation was designed to minimize its impact on the surroundings and to reduce the use of concrete which actually is the construction industry’s biggest generator of carbon emissions.

The building system is suitable for most terrains, but if necessary, a specialized engineering team will consult the terrain conditions and a specific new foundation will be developed. The team will also accompany the owner with materials and tools to assemble the cabin efficiently and quickly.

It has two levels – the lower area is the living space with a kitchenette and a fireplace while the upper area is entirely a sleeping zone. The bed mattress rests on a raised wooden platform and is positioned in a way to let catch the view of the sky through a window on the angular roof without leaving your bed. Cabana offers a complete cozy cabin-in-the-woods vibe but with a modern aesthetic and a sustainable construction process!

Designer: Liga Arquitetura e Urbanismo

This tiny cabin in the woods is every book lover’s dream!

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Libraries are one of my happy places so this cabin is straight out of my dream – a cozy personal library blended with a forest getaway! The Bookworm cabin is made for bibliophiles who want to enjoy the peace and quiet of nature while devouring stories by a fireplace. Designed by Polish duo Bartłomiej Kraciukand and Marta Puchalska-Kraciuk, this cabin is all about immersing yourself in your books and the woods which was their personal motive too!

The angular 377-square-foot cabin is built on a wooded plot near the town of Mazovia which is just 31 miles outside Warsaw. The design and aesthetic were inspired by the surrounding lush forest and sand dunes.

Puchalska-Kraciuk is an architect who specializes in interior design with the firm Moszczyńska Puchalska in Warsaw and adapted the cabin’s concept from colleagues at POLE Architekci.

“I just loved staring at this landscape—but how long can you do that for? Maybe longer if you are indoors facing a big window, sitting on a comfy chair. Still, how long can you endure this? That’s when the idea to fill it with books came in. That way one can sit, stare, and have a reason for it—the reason being reading a book,” says Kraciuk.

She modified the original concept from POLE Architekci to transform it into a book lover’s dream escape. “We made minor changes to the colors, window arrangement, and some interior design, and the house was ready,” adds Kraciuk.

The fireplace, plush seating, and wooden interiors enhance the coziness and warmth – literally. It’s modern, minimal and keeps the focus on your reading list or the scenic outdoors thanks to its sweeping glass windows.

The Bookworm cabin has two levels – 269 square feet on the first floor and a 108-square-foot upper level which has is a sleeping loft. The compact structure uses space wisely, it has a full bathroom underneath the stairs, shelves filled with hundreds of books that line the interior, and a kitchenette that stands against the far wall. The dream is to take all my unread books and stay for half a year…minimum!

Designer: Bartłomiej Kraciukand and Marta Puchalska-Kraciuk

This tiny cabin in the woods is shaped like a megaphone to amplify the forest sounds and bring you inner peace!

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Hooves walking over packed snow, flapping wings from above headed south for the winter, and wind rustling against leaves. The sounds of the forest are enough to help bring calm to anyone. With 2021 establishing its position as one of the more stressful years for many of us, a forest getaway sounds like the perfect escape. As a result, some of the most innovative tiny homes and cabins have come from the year we’ve spent in quarantine. While many of the year’s cabin designs leaned on floor-to-ceiling windows and more compact builds to bring guests closer to the beautiful sights in nature, somewhere in the dense forest of Zaube, Latvia, a tiny cabin, designed by Gianluca Santosuosso in collaboration with Matthias Kimmel, takes on a megaphone’s shape to bring the soothing sounds of the natural world a little bit closer.

Designed to function as a meditative space, Santosuosso’s Silence Amplifier works like a funnel for audio, similar to that of a megaphone. Silence Amplifier is a cone-shaped micro-hospitality cabin that collects the sounds of the surrounding forest through its large main opening and then amplifies them as they reach the cabin’s apex. The sloped tiny cabin works like a megaphone would so that guests can enjoy a sensuous and audiovisual experience in a natural environment without having to step out into the cold. Santosuosso and Kimmel designed the Silence Amplifier both to offer a place of respite for those of us who’d like to be one with nature and mediate from a distance and to create an architectural organism that blends with nature with a synergistic, collaborative angle.

The tiny cabin’s sloped roof rises with the surrounding trees and following it to its ground-level apex, Silence Amplifier merges with the forest’s floor, hardly disturbing the natural landscape of Latvia’s wood. In order to bring guests and Silence Amplifier closer to nature, Santosuosso designed the roof to allow native vegetation to grow on top of it. Silence Amplifier, constructed almost entirely from locally sourced timber, appears almost like a bear’s den in the middle of a snowy forest. Sustainable wood fiber insulation and a high-thermal-inertia firewood stove keep the cabin cozy. Silence Amplifier comes equipped with all the warmth needed for heating and cooking inside the cabin, so feel free to hibernate like a bear would and let the calming sounds of the forest rock you to sleep.

Designers: Gianluca Santosuosso x Matthias Kimmel

Similar to the way a megaphone works, Silence Amplifier collects the general outside noise through its larger base window and reverberates the sound waves as the cabin’s walls converge closer until meeting at its apex.

Designed primarily for meditation, Silence Amplifier offers a place of respite for guests to enjoy the sounds of silence that emanate from the forest.

“Instead of simply creating a building, we are proposing to create an architectural organism that is able to collect the silence of the forest, channel it and provide it to the person in the cabin in an amplified and customizable manner,” says Santosuosso.

IDEO’s Winter Dining challenge’s winning designs balance safety without sacrificing the experience!

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IDEO launched its very own Chicago-based Winter Dining Challenge during the age of COVID-19. Through this challenge, the city of Chicago aims to stimulate and encourage safe dining from Lake Michigan to Chicago Lawn and everywhere in between. This challenge is 2020 pandemic-specific since alternative dining experiences have been at the forefront of everyone’s minds, as you probably already know. On October 8th, IDEO announced the top designs for Chicago, each of which brought with them a distinct interpretation of safe, yet lively dining experiences.

Cozy Cabins

Inspired by ice fishing huts, Young designed modular, transparent cabins so that dinner guests can enjoy the bustling streets of Chicago while maintaining safety protocol for social distancing. The cabins are identical in size and shape, which makes it easy to reproduce in other cities, fitting easily within average-sized parking spaces. Best yet, the cabins are also simply produced, requiring only wood, corrugated metal, polycarbonate plastic, and standard framing hardware. Additionally, these cabins are inexpensive to make and integrate a floor-heating system in order to keep diners warm while they enjoy their meals. Cozy Cabin would offer Chicagoans a warm, appetizing retreat during the city’s notoriously frigid winter months.

Designers:  Amy Young x ASD | SKY 

Each Cozy Cabin is identical in size and shape, making the process of construction and reproduction manageable. Additionally, the cabins require minimal material, all of which can be sustainably sourced and maintained. Diners will have lots of personal space in these Cozy Cabins, depending on their party’s size.

Block Party

Urban designers, Neil Reindel and Flo Mettetal designed expandable, life-size blocks for their alternative dining spaces. These blocks fit within parking lanes, in order to fully expand. However, if restaurants do not have enough space in their parking lots, then the blocks can be positioned on extended sidewalks or pocket parks. The blocks position diners amongst the busy and many pedestrians of city streets, bringing the communal experience of eating out to each block. Likely, the most exciting feature of this concept in particular is the expansion feature. If your party is bigger, then the blocks can be grouped together in order to enlarge the dining space. This dining experience is not fully enclosed, allowing for some air circulation. However, available curtains would allow diners to turn their dining experience into a private one. Each module would be constructed using Metal ‘C’ studs, in expanded polystyrene, and objects (tables, light fixtures, etc.) would be clad with sealed MDF, a material denser than plywood. By implementing a thermal mesh system, Block Party ensures a warm dining experience for each block partygoer.

Designers: Neil Reindel and Flo Mettetal

Each module seats two guests comfortably and can be arranged to accommodate bigger parties if the need arises.

Each module can be moved using a caster wheel dolly and combined so that modules can increase room for diners by increments of two. The modules fasten together using pin joints, which is a good option in order to prevent the modules from rotating or drifting.

The modules can be arranged so that the restaurant’s outdoor seating space is optimized and after work hours, the blocks can be separated and organized depending on the space available.

While these blocks themselves represent a safe dining experience, the Chicago-based, urban designers intend to implement further safety protocols, such as one-way routes for wait staff and pedestrians, along with security blocks in order to minimize traffic flow on the sidewalk.

Heated Tables

Working from Japanese modes of dining, Chicago-based Ellie Henderson planned outdoor heated tables for IDEO’s Winter Design Challenge. Heated tables, also known as kotatsu, are common in Japan and provide an economical way to keep warm during cold months. Typically found indoors, heated tables represent a hub of warmth for households. By making a few modifications, Henderson hopes to bring Hygge dining, a Danish concept meant in regard to life’s simple pleasures, to the streets of Chicago. This design stands out for its open-air approach to dining. This means that servers and restaurant-owners will still have to maintain COVID-19 safety protocol. Air circulation is vital in reducing the transmission of Coronavirus, which means this design might thrive so long as initiatives such as the closure of streets for comfortable outdoor dining remain in place. Perhaps the most economical design option, heated tables’ construction would require only preexisting material: a source of heat, blanket, screws, and a table.

Designer: Ellie Henderson

Inspired by the Japanese way of dining (kotatsu) an economical, and familiar material make up this design. All that it needs is a tabletop, blanket, a source of heat, and some screws. The heating element typically remains out of view, underneath the table and blanket covering.

In addition to dining experiences, bars, festivals, and other indoor services have changed their indoor seating to similar variants of the heated table design, inspired by kotatsu, as pictured above.