Tag Archives: Timber

Mass-timber pavilion in a university campus is an ideal observation spot for bird-watchers

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The Johnson Owl Deck Pavilion is a simple mass-timber pavilion constructed by architect Jesús Vassallo and a team of graduate students at Rice University on the Houston campus. The pavilion was built using cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels to convey how potent the material is as a carbon-negative and sustainable building method and can serve a specific function. “We wanted to design a building that would be true to CLT’s structural behavior and aesthetic potential,” said Vassallo. “Nowadays mass timber buildings are increasingly normative and based on repetitive grids that while efficient from an economic standpoint, do not do justice to the versatility of the material.”

Designer: Jesús Vassallo

The timber pavilion is located in the university’s Harris Gully Natural Area, a restored watershed to which a large variety of high-level bird species are attracted. Occupying 1000 square meters, the pavilion is made of eight rectangular columns topped off with a single square, and a flat roof. The pavilion has an extremely simple, minimal, and rustic appearance. The columns and roof of the pavilion were built using CLT panels of southern yellow pine. The panels are in their ‘purest’ form, and they display the material’s easy assembly.

“From the inside, the variable angles work as a sort of camouflage,” said Vassallo. “Creating patterns of light and shadow, minimizing the presence of the people using the pavilion to do bird watching. From the outside, the effect is that of a building that is constantly changing as you walk around it.” Every column is rotated at a different angle altogether, to ensure that privacy is provided to the bird watchers or other people who visit the pavilion. In fact, the pavilion was designed to look like the “ruin of a small temple”.

The pavilion is part of a long-term plan to better manage and take care of the microhabitats of the area which include shrubland, woodland, marsh, and prairie. The pavilion is now a permanent installation on the campus, and students and the public, both can visit it. The pavilion, was in fact, created in a mass timber seminar led by Vassallo and designed with graduate students Pouya Khadem and Lene Sollie and structural engineer Tracy Huynh.

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This prefabricated timber home in Barcelona has a bright red-brick building for a base

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Spanish architecture studio Agora Arquitectura transformed a derelict brick building into a sturdy base for a raised timber home and dubbed the structure ‘House on a Brick Base’ – quite appropriately. The home is located on the outskirts of Barcelona on an agricultural site that accommodated a tool shed, and a small red-brick building.

Designer: Agora Arquitectura

The tool shed and the red-brick building were dilapidated when the architects were brought to the site. To bring some life to the site, the studio completely renovated and rejuvenated the brick building and extended it across the landscape. “At the bottom of the site, a small building in ruins invited us to build a new home, recalling old ways of building in its place,” said studio co-founder Joan Casals Pañella. The building’s shell was incorporated with two perpendicular brick walls, that create a T-shape, and divide the interior, while also supporting the timber building above.

A perforated brick wall has been placed around the boundary of the site, and external brick staircases integrated into the sloped landscape, to connect the various levels of the building. “A ramp, which allows access to the lower level of the terrain, or stairs hidden behind the openwork wall, allow for a ceremonious ascent towards the built interior,” said Pañella. “Following the stairs lets visitors discover a 100-year-old olive tree that invites them into the area in front of the main door,” he continued.

A raised garden has been integrated onto the top of the pre-existing structure, with the new volume placed adjacent to it. The newer building was built using prefabricated cross-laminated timber, and clad in whitewashed cork – a sustainable choice of materials. Huge windows with timber frames and external blinds mark the upper level. The rooms of the house have been spread out over the two storeys, that are connected via a steel spiral staircase. The staircase is overshadowed by a large skylight on the top, which allows natural light to freely stream into the home.

“The light also reaches the brick portion of the house,” said Pañella. “It takes advantage of the hole in the spiral staircase, in charge of connecting the built levels, and it is where the brick wall of the plinth can be recognized from the rooms above,” he concluded.

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This V-shaped timber home in a Czech village features two elongated volumes intersecting each other

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Nestled on the south edge of the Czech village of Rybí, is a V-shaped house that consists of two elongated volumes that intersect one another, and feature pitched roofs. Called the ‘House with In-law Suite’, this house functions as a communal living space for a family of four, and their grandparents. The family hoped for a space that they could all share, but with an element of privacy and separation. And KLAR architects really managed to do that! Especially considering that most of the site was predetermined by the minimum required setbacks from existing underground gas storage tanks and from the forest edge.

Designer: KLAR

“After considering the budget limitations, program requirements, and the preferred choice of a wood structure building, our final decision was to adopt a rational approach with repeating structural elements,” KLAR said.

The clients had a few requests – they wanted the home to be built from wood, and to be a sustainable structure that is easy and economical to build. They also wanted to partially build the timber home themselves. The result was a simple and minimal wooden structure with a pitched roof, that is quite reminiscent of the homes found in the Beskydy region, where the house is located.

“The house was constructed using a timber frame and structural sheet-wood panels, with different types of foundations used for the two wings. The in-law suite uses reinforced concrete strip foundations while the family home is raised from the ground on thin steel stilts,” the architects said.

“This gives a certain lightweight quality to the building, reducing its scale and impact on the soil,” they concluded.

If you look closely, the two volumes seem to merge into one another at the entrance of the home. The two intersected wings then extend alongside the courtyard and have been gifted with surreal views of the surrounding forest. The courtyard faces the southern side and forms a peaceful triangle that kids could play around in. A roof overhang shades a wide deck, which stretches all along the length of the house. The deck and courtyard are connected via steps, so you can easily move to and fro the house. There are beautiful trees growing all around, so you can truly enjoy nature.

Where the two wings of the home intersect, you can find a vestibule. On one side, a door leads you to the main living area, while a corridor on the other side leads to the mechanical room, a bathroom, and the grandparent’s room. The family wing is a cozy open-plan space, amped with a kitchen, and dining area. If you move further inside, you’ll find the children’s bedroom, the main bathroom, and the master bedroom. What I absolutely love, is how you can access the deck from each room!

The dark timber exterior, open and spacious interiors, the gentle green courtyard, and a sense of privacy in every corner make the House with In-law Suite a rather unique and special home. You don’t often see homes designed so smartly and efficiently, especially when supported by a low budget.

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This treehouse is built from felled trees to prove the importance of effective woodland management

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The Sylvascope is a wooden treehouse built for The Harewood Biennial 2022 exhibit where designers and artists explore why craft is a radical act.

The Harewood Biennial 2022 is a contemporary art exhibit that takes place on the estate of the Harewood House located in Leeds, United Kingdom. The exhibit is meant to explore forms of radical acts within the scope of design and craft. Spread over 100 acres of land, artists and designers embrace radical acts through their own interpretations, from organic architecture to mycelium-based furniture. For Sebastian Cox, a London-based fine furniture maker, his idea of radical acts took shape in the form of a treehouse. Dubbed Sylvascope, the treehouse is a nest-like space constructed by cutting trees down, Cox’s chosen radical act.

Designer: Harewood x Sebastian Cox

Describing the inspiration behind this radical act, Cox describes, “We are planting trees at a rate not seen before in history. The area of woodland in Britain is now back at the level it was in the 14th Century. Despite this, biodiversity within woodlands is declining. How do we save our woodland wildlife? It seems not necessarily by planting more trees–we need to manage our woodland.” In an effort to explore how cutting down trees can help diversify the woodland creatures that populate the forest, the trees used to give rise to Sylvascope came from felled trees located on-site.

Built almost entirely from trees harvested onsite, the Sylvascope treehouse is located in the nucleus of the Harewood Estate to show what managed forests look like. Through this radical act, Cox hopes to help facilitate the growth of brambles and herb undergrowth to boost the area’s biodiversity. Along with cutting trees down, Cox is also planting new seeds and trees in different sections of the forest to provide diverse nesting grounds for different animal species.

“We often think a healthy woodland is one that looks pleasing – with tall trees and a welcoming, leaf-littered woodland floor, easy to navigate with no brambles or undergrowth. But this kind of woodland is not favorable to most of our woodland wildlife,” Cox explains, “When we fell some trees in a woodland, and let light into the woodland floor, other plants, and with the insects, mammals, and birds, can thrive. It seems cutting trees can be more useful than just planting them. Only 41% of Britain’s woodlands are managed, so management should be an equal priority to planting.

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Japanese zen gardens inspired the sinuous design of this shapeshifting timber table

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Outside In is a multifunctional, shapeshifting table that incorporates hand-carved grooves into its timber frame to resemble the raked ruts of Japanese zen gardens.

Japanese zen gardens have supplied ceaseless inspiration for designers. While the sheer meditative quality of zen gardens is enough to insight some new ideas, the artful design of zen gardens rakes its own creative vision for designers. Melbourne-based furniture, lighting, and object design company Sabu Studio found its own creative vision by way of Japanese zen gardens when designing the minimalist Outside In table.

Designer: Sabu Studio x Samuel Burns

Designed for his collection of personal and bespoke projects, Sabu Studio founder Samuel Burns designed Outside In to be a multifunctional, shapeshifting table defined by its sinuous timber surface that resembles the hand-raked grooves of a zen garden.

While the tabletop’s timber grooves resemble zen gardens’ raked ruts, they also double as rails for hand-carved granite and marble elements to slide between and provide functional flat surfaces. Two halves of a rectangular marble element can separate to create two small flat surfaces. Or, when users need a larger tabletop surface, the two halves come together to form a larger rectangle.

Burns turned to the flow of water and Japanese zen gardens to introduce elements of nature to interior city spaces. Fully functional as a table, Outside In is a crafty piece of furniture that would look right at home in hospitality common spaces or even event halls.

Explaining the piece’s origins, Burns notes, “The primary aim of Outside In was to introduce a sense of the natural world into interior spaces through form and symbolism. The design investigates materials dialogues and the notion of synergy, each object can shift and slide across the surface in a circular motion.”

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This tiny timber home is a twist on A-frame cabins defined by bio-philic design

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The Slope House from the 3D visualizer Milad Eshtiyaghi is an untraditional A-frame cabin that employs biophilic design inside and out.

3D visualizer and international architect Milad Eshtiyaghi has long been drawn to escapist hideaways perched on rugged, seaside cliffs and isolated cabins envisioned beneath the Northern Lights. Today, he turns his gaze to tiny cabins. A bit more quaint than treacherous, Eshtiyaghi’s latest 3D visualization finds an angular, timber cabin nestled atop an idyllic hillside somewhere in the rainforests of Brazil.

Designer: Milad Eshtiyaghi

Dubbed the Slope House, the timber cabin maintains a signature triangular frame that’s a thoughtful twist on the conventional A-frame cabin. Defined by two modules, one internal volume hosts the cabin’s bedroom while the other keeps the home’s main living spaces, like the dining area, kitchen, and den. The tiny cabin from Eshtiyaghi is envisioned propped atop a truss system that was specifically chosen to minimize the home’s impact on the preexisting landscape.

Describing this choice, Eshtiyaghi notes, “One of the main concerns in this project was to preserve the ground context without damaging the green ground and to preserve the ecology of the living context. Therefore, it was decided to separate the building from its ground and build it with a truss structure…In this way, the natural land and the living place of living organisms will not be damaged and plants and living organisms will continue to live under the building and the life of living organisms will flow under the building.”

The Slope House has a bohemian-chic personality, outfitted with stringed lights and plants galore. Eshtiyaghi aimed to integrate a biophilic design style into the cabin’s interior spaces so he envisioned interior garden spaces to fill the bedroom and common spaces. As one of the client’s main interests was gardening, Eshtiyaghi line the home’s floor and ceiling with access to natural spaces.

As Eshtiyaghi describes, “We decided to have natural plants inside the house as a small garden. We also have a larger garden under the main bedroom so that these plants can be seen from inside the building, so we worked the floor of the bedroom with transparent material…we also [equipped] the sloping roof of this room with a skylight.”

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This tiny timber home was inspired by a slide viewer to give guests the best views of Tasmania’s coastline

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Dolphin Sands Studio is a tiny timber home that uses sustainable minimalism to bring its residents as close to Australia’s Tasmanian shores as possible.

Matt Williams Architects is a Tasmania-based architecture firm that specializes in sustainable architecture to bring clients as close to the sandy dunes of Australia’s southern island as possible. One of their latest undertakings finds a 36 square-meter tiny home only yards away from the ocean’s shoreline, positioned safely amongst the dune’s natural vegetation. Designed for a couple of artists, the Dolphin Sands Studio is a timber, triangular dwelling that was built to serve as the couple’s home until their larger residence is finished.

Designer: Matt Williams Architects

Named after the neighborhood it’s located in, Dolphin Sands Studio can be found on Tasmania’s east coast. Once completed, the Dolphin Sands Studio will function as a guest house for the couple’s main residence, which is located only a few meters back. The unique shape of Dolphin Sands Studio was inspired by the shape and purpose of a vintage slide viewer.

Built to rake in the best views on the coast, the hard part was constructing the home to not disrupt the natural landscape. Finding flexibility through sustainability, Dolphin Sands Studio boasts a naturally small footprint and is constructed from locally sourced building material.

Propped up on a system of supportive stilts, the Dolphin Sands Studio is leveled out atop a dune and dip. The tiny home features a slightly inclined roof that rises with the dunes’ changing heights. The narrow timber panels that line each facade also increase in height as the roof reaches its most lofty peak. The lined timber panels provide the home with a thoughtfully curated minimalist look that looks elemental yet still adorned.

Inside, the home features a spacious, open floor layout that leaves enough room for a small kitchen space, half-bathroom, and large bedroom area. Paneled in oriented strand board, the unfinished look brings some calm and warmth to the home. The living and dining spaces are separated by the bed’s headboard, which doubles as the kitchen’s stovetop. Then, an outdoor shower makes the indoor bathroom feel fuller and introduces the home’s dark, hardwood deck.

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This prefab cabin located in the snowy slopes of Sweden is a family’s winter home!

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Villa Timmerman is a blackened timber cabin located in Sweden, designed by husband and wife duo Andreas Lyckefors and Josefine Wikholm.

Sweden-based architecture studio Bornstein Lyckefors recently finished work on an intricate winter getaway situated in the picturesque suburbs of Askim in Sweden’s Gothenburg Municipality. Devised and constructed by Bornstein Lyckefors founders and husband and wife team, Andreas Lyckefors and Josefine Wikholm, Villa Timmerman is a cozy winter prefabricated cabin, ideal for those winter months when you want to immerse your every sense in all the season has to offer.

Designer: Bornstein Lyckefors

Askin is known as a commercial fishing hub, so it makes sense that Villa Timmerman’s location was chosen so that it would overlook the sea below. Located on the southeast side of a gradual slope, Villa Timmerman perches above snow-covered valleys as a semi-detached house that functions as the couple’s family base.

Defined by windows covered by over crossed grilles that form the shapes of diamonds and vertical beams, Villa Timmerman draws in ample sunlight from each side to create beautiful lattice shadows inside. The architects also note that “The grid was an experiment that proved to work well as extra protection against solar radiation on the façade and as a protective layer against the drifting rain on the west coast.”

The villa’s location was in fact chosen so that sun would enter the house from at least one side at all hours of the day so that extra protection was necessary. Explaining this further, the architects at Bornstein Lyckefors describe,

“It was a challenge to create a semi-detached house with equal qualities at both ends, as they naturally face different directions. We had to study the local conditions carefully and take into account weather, views, sun, evening sun, contact with the street and neighbors. In the end, the house could be arranged so that both parts of the house get morning, noon, and evening sun. There is always sun on one terrace or balcony during the bright part of the day.”

Achieved through a process called wood tarring, the villa’s blackened timber exterior complements the home’s interior, which is characterized by bright, natural wood walls. Inside, accents of veneers and ash elements give the staircase and furniture pieces some personality.

The brightening quality of the home’s interior is amplified by the open-plan layout and expansive windows that flow from the home’s floor to its double-height ceiling. Dissolving the barrier between the outdoors and the home’s warm interior, the villa, and its windows were specifically configured to maximize the amount of sunlight to enter the home during the day.

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This tiny black cabin is built from felled oak trees acquired from a home’s construction waste!

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Studio Padron designed and built a tiny cabin entirely from mature felled oak trees acquired from another home’s construction waste.

As the old saying goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” When it comes to home construction, waste produced during the building process opens the door for more opportunities. While many home builders and architects plan homes around the site’s preexisting trees and landscape, sometimes felling trees can’t be avoided. After finishing work on a new home, Studio Padron, a US-based architecture firm, utilized the felled trees collected during the home’s construction and built a tiny black cabin to function as the home’s standalone library.

Calling the bookworm’s oasis Hemmelig Room, or ‘secret room’ in Norwegian, Studio Padron built the entire tiny cabin from disused mature oak trees that were felled during the main home’s construction. From the outside, Hemmelig Room finds a geometric structure clad in blackened timber. Following the main home’s construction process, the felled oak trees were cut into large, rectangular log sections that were left to dry over several years before building Hemmelig Room.

Inside, the blackened timber reveals the oak tree’s raw, polished form. From top to bottom, Studio Padron outfitted Hemmelig Room’s interior in nonuniform timber panels that merge with cavities to create bookshelves. Besides that, floor-to-ceiling windows bring the quiet space closer to the outdoor landscape. Equipped with a wood-burning stove to keep the space warm year-round, guests can enjoy enough space for a bed, armchair, and writing desk.

Designer: Studio Padron

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This oddly-shaped Finnish cabin was made with cross-laminated timber to withstand subarctic cold!

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This cabin in the woods is an otherworldly, all-black, geometric structure built to provide cozy refuge even in harsh Finnish winters. It was designed for a California-based CEO who returned home to Finland with her family to be closer to her ancestral land so she could maintain it. The cabin is aptly named Meteorite based on its unique shape and is set in a clearing surrounded by spruce and birch trees. The cabin is made entirely from cross-laminated timber (CLT) which is a sustainable alternative to other construction materials.

The three-story home is built entirely from 272 prefabricated panels of cross-laminated, locally sourced timber—a sustainable material that lends itself to digital design methods and follows the Finnish tradition of timber construction. Air gaps of various sizes behind the facade keep the interior warm without conventional insulation, even during Finland’s freezing winters, and give the Meteorite its out-of-this-world shape.

Inspired by the Ice Age rock formations found throughout the region, the Meteorite is a faceted dwelling designed by Kivi and Tuuli Sotamaa, the brother-and-sister duo behind Ateljé Sotamaa. They designed the faceted structure as a guest house for the family, although during the pandemic it has served also as an office for, a recording studio, and an after-school playroom for children.

The Meteorite’s black-tinted exterior provides a stark contrast to the warm, all-wood interior. “Everything on the outside is designed to dramatically stage the inside,” says Kivi. “It’s a mysterious object, and you don’t quite know what is going on within.” Part of the mystique lies in the deceptive nature of its size—the interior spans only 807 square feet of floor space, yet its total volume is 10,594 cubic feet.

Its envelope contains no plastic or insulation; it’s simply two sheets of wood, and the air gap in between them helps to regulate indoor temperature even when the subarctic climate outside drops to single digits in winter. The “between space,” as Ulla describes it, also hides storage and the building’s technical systems, preserving the minimalist feel of the interior.

The Meteorite’s interior is clad in spruce from floor to ceiling, and all the furniture for the living areas were hand-selected works by Finnish designers that the couple picked out themselves. The dining area features a built-in corner sofa designed by Ateljé Sotamaa with slipcovers and pillows by Klaus Haapaniemi & Co – a local artistic brand with works inspired by traditional Finnish folklore.

The Meteorite was originally envisioned as a guesthouse, but with the pandemic keeping them at home, it now serves as a more permanent, multipurpose space for the family. The traditional separation of work and home has disappeared, and it’s beautiful that they are merged within this single building.

My favorite part of the home – and I’m sure also the kids’ – is the giant net on the top floor. It ties the home together visually while adding connectivity without having to be in the same space. It is also extremely well light thanks to the multiple windows and skylights that are placed on unconventional angles because of the unique shape of the cabin.

The warm wooden interior complements the black timber exterior very well. The cabin is a beautiful blend of Finnish and Scandinavian elements in the finer details as well as the overall aesthetic which is minimal and monochromatic. Meteorite is an elegant picture example of modern architecture and interior that has been woven together with local traditions, simplicity, and sustainability.

Designer: Ateljé Sotamaa