Tag Archives: prefabricated cabin

Prefabricated as a gym or an office, this lightweight modular cabin is the answer to 2020’s travel blues!

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With stay-at-home orders getting stricter in some cities, daydreaming about travel feels like some faraway consolation prize. Thankfully, however, plenty of tiny home and micro cabin designs have come from the woes of 2020 and turned our daydreams into reality. Studio Puisto, an interior design studio based in Finland, collaborated with furniture brand Made By Choice and design firm Portos Demos to create Space of Mind, a modular, micro cabin prefabricated to be stationed anywhere so that guests can go from their home office to an off-grid mountain studio for peace and productivity.

I don’t know about you, but it is getting harder and harder to get work done in my apartment – every day feels the same. We’re certainly in this, and by this I mean 2020, together and no matter how we see ourselves ‘getting away from it all,’ Space of Mind currently has three options. The modular cabin can be stationed anywhere accessible by helicopter or crane and designed as either a peaceful working studio, dynamic fitness hub, or a cozy, hotel-style bedroom. Studio Puisto, turning their micro cabin design into a micro-hospitality solution, even has plans in the works for creating an app for bookings and keyless entry and constructing another micro cabin outfitted with a sauna.

After all, Space of Mind’s integral attribute is its changeability, which is highlighted by the designers, “The outer wooden structure acts as a blank slate while the interior is adjustable to individual preferences, creating a space that can manifest into a gym for one and into a home office for another.” Inside the micro cabin, pieces of furniture like bed frames and benches are supported by wooden rungs that provide guests with a little bit of their own creative direction in regard to interior design. Both Space of Mind’s interiors and exteriors are constructed using ecologically-sourced Finnish wood, providing durability for even the harshest of Arctic winters. Proving that, “with less, we can feel more,” Studio Puisto did not include added insulation to their cabins, asserting that this brings guests closer to the raw elements of the outdoors.

With an overall architectural footprint of just below 10m2, Space of Mind is designed to be lightweight, minimal, and compact – an empty canvas. Studio Puisto brings their modular, tiny home to those who need some space most, allowing guests to decide how they’d personally prefer the peace of mind. Studio Puisto knows that can be attained either through grounding yoga in the great outdoors or finally getting that work project done away from the city noise so they let you decide, “No matter whether it is placed in a backyard, rooftop terrace or even the nearby forest, Space of Mind acts as a spatial solution that fosters a similar experience – just without leaving home.”

Designers: Studio Puisto with Made By Choice and Protos Demos

This tiny, prefabricated home travels with you from the coastlines to the mountain tops!

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I think it’s safe to say that we’re all itching for a change of scenery. With stay-at-home orders ramping up again, planning a quick trip somewhere off-the-grid seems to be our favorite mode of distraction. Modern-Shed, a leader in innovative, sustainable, prefabricated structures, heard our 11:11 wishes and designed Dwelling on Wheels, or DW for short. Their Dwelling on Wheels is a 220-square-feet tiny home on wheels that buyers can bring with them on the road and situate on coastlines or nearby riverbeds for overnight stays and views.

Built to withstand varying climates and temperatures, a steel rib cage and standing seam metal siding wraps around the exterior of DW for a durable and weather-tight finish. Complementing the industrial cottage design, red cedar wood accents warm up the walls, eaves, and even the tiny home’s awning that hangs overhead a durable, ironwood deck, accessible through the dwelling’s double-pane glazed gable door. Positioned on top of the steel-tube roof, Modern-Shed installed solar panels to further their efforts in maintaining a small carbon footprint. The full unit measures in at 8.5 feet tall by 26 feet long, with widths up to 16 feet, and rests on a custom-built trailer from Tumbleweed. In order to further enhance DW’s low-carbon commitment, each tiny home buyer can also install both a water tank and a composting unit.

The inside of Dwelling on Wheels hosts all one might need to feel right at home away from home. When you first walk into the DW through the floor-to-ceiling, double-pane glazed gable door, a wood-burning stove in the home’s living room welcomes you on your right while birch face ply interior walls open up the small living space inside. The home’s kitchen is also lined with birch cabinetry and comes equipped with slim wall heaters, infrared cooktops, both a built-in sink and seating, and a removable dining table. Sliding past the living area’s kitchen and dining space on DW’s sustainable, linoleum flooring, buyers will find sleeping arrangements for up to three people, utilizing the dwelling’s built-in lofted two-bed setup. The two beds, an almost-Queen on the bottom, and a twin-sized bed above it come with integrated storage space just beneath the bunk bed unit. Sleek and bending sky wall windows line the walls and ceilings of DW’s interior, offering unfettered views of the outdoors from anywhere inside the tiny home.

After two decades of proving themselves leaders in the world of backyard sheds, Modern-Shed, based out of Seattle and founded by Ryan Smith, brought the shed to the road with The Dwelling on Wheels. The DW offers a classic rendition of a recognizable home with a resilient gable form, and a clever, energy-efficient design that provides all one needs in a compact 8x30ft tiny home, all that there’s left to do is find out exactly where we’ll be getting that change of scenery we keep talking about.

Designer: Modern-Shed

This “unfolding house” comes prefabricated and can be assembled in less than 3 hours!

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Putting an absolutely new kind of spin on “Home Delivery”, Brette Haus’ prefabricated cabins are literally shipped to your location on the back of a trailer. In a matter of 3 hours, the home is placed on the site, unfolded, and secured in place, turning it from one weird wooden carton into a liveable cabin with anywhere between 22 to 47 sq.ft. of space (depending on the cabin’s variant).

Each cabin takes roughly 8 weeks to fabricate and comes made entirely from carbon-neutral, weather-proof, and sustainable cross-laminated timber. There is no need for a permanent foundation… the cabins can easily be unfolded on any levelled ground before being secured in place using screw piles. The hinges on the cabin can survive up to 100 folding cycles (which means you can carry your house to multiple locations), and Brette Haus even offers optional addons like a waste-tank and solar panel kit, allowing you to live comfortably, yet off the grid… and possibly far away from civilization if you’re tired of the human race after this exhausting year.

Designer: Brette Haus

A prefabricated cabin that doubles as a winter retreat to ring in 2021!

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Winter is slowly revving up and, since quarantine kept us inside from enjoying the usual social perks of summer, we’re all hoping to find ways to make the most of the upcoming snowy season. Recently, new architectural ventures have led to the creation of prefabricated cabins, which very possibly might become winter’s saving grace in the age of COVID-19. Prefabricated cabins such as GROVE CAB, designed by Valerii Shcherbak, help make nature getaways feel a lot cozier and all the more accommodating.

This new type of architecture is garnering a lot of popularity in Europe and it’s no surprise. Prefabricated cabins are constructed prioritizing simplicity and modularity. Being that Shcherbak’s cabin is built from wood material and sturdy paneling, each component of GROVE CAB is designed for familiar and intuitive construction, and the light, natural wooden tones help open up each room. The cabin comes in two modules: the first containing a living room or recreation area and your bedroom, and the second comes with a kitchen, bathroom, and exterior patio. The two units are connected where the frames for both of the module’s hallways meet, which creates a space that feels like a one-bedroom home. Additionally, both of the modules have their own doors so whichever side you might find yourself, access to the outdoors is only ever a few steps away.

Equipped with butterfly roofs, the respective module comes with high ceilings to ensure that, despite the compact, manageable size of the whole cabin, it feels roomy and snug at the same time. Adding to the structure’s toastiness, a fully-integrated fireplace warms up this prefabricated cabin from the bedroom for a rustic ambiance and to help you feel right at home in wintery landscapes. Further, on the cabin’s modularity, glass windows take up entire walls in the bedroom and kitchen so that during the day, snowy horizons and forests fill your perspective and at night, closed curtains can keep the cold air at bay while you enjoy the fire. Outside on the patio, a bonfire can heat up late-night conversations or accompany quiet evenings with a crackling, intimate background. Since prefabricated cabins are built in order for you to situate them wherever you feel like visiting, they are inherently more eco-conscious. Instead of digging up land for a built-in log cabin, GROVE CAB lets the natural beauty of winter environments be your guide. Preconstructed cabins provide a gentle reminder for all of us that wherever we may find ourselves, all we need is a little bit of space and time and we can build a home.

Designer: Valerii Shcherbak

This modular cabin uses industrial zinc to help Costa Rica meet its Carbon Neutral by 2021 pledge!

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Costa Rica is widely celebrated as one of the most environmentally progressive countries in the world, pledging in 2015 to become a carbon-neutral country by 2021. Naturally, in order to uphold that pledge, Úbáli Tropical Living, a Costa Rican architecture firm committed to sustainable hotel tourism, designs eco-friendly modular cabins for various terrains that have been conceived and constructed in order to decrease carbon footprints typically caused by tourism.

Úbáli, which means chameleon in Bribri, designed their first modular cabin, called Kabëk, specifically to befit mountain living. The first model for the Úbáli Tropical Living’s eco-tourism initiative dons an inclined roof, which allows the modular house to tuck right into mountainous terrains and offers travelers the chance to fully immerse themselves and their stays in the quiet of the wood. The modular cabin has a simple design layout of four walls that enclose a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and dining room. The construction process also promotes frugality in regard to both time and money in that its modularity and simple layout caters to the prospect of easy and relatively affordable replication. Prepared for the most extreme of climates, Kabëk is assembled using industrial zinc, an extremely durable material that reforms nicks and blemishes thanks to its own hydroxyl carbonate protective layer. Additionally, industrial zinc’s levels of low toxicity are ideal for modular homes situated in natural settings. Industrial zinc is recyclable, durable, and an eco-conscious option for roofs. For example, rainwater that flows off Kabëk’s roof does not collect any hazardous waste on its way to the ground’s soil. Kabëk’s transportability is inherently green as the construction process preserves the natural settings on which Kabëk is situated. Furthermore, the materials used to build the modular home – industrial zinc, gypsum, and Densglass – form an ecologically sound structure that can withstand irregular changes in weather.

Once buyers attain land and construction permits, the building process takes just about two months to reach completion. In addition to the environmentally sustainable qualities and money-conscious design concept, Kabëk comes with installed septic tanks and the properly outfitted facilities needed for longer stays. The home is equipped with essential lifestyle products and tools in order to maintain convenience for a trip that otherwise brings you one on one with the mountain’s bare, albeit restorative, necessities.

Designers: Pablo Esteban Valle and Arthur Micheron x Úbáli Tropical Living