Hölick Sea Resort has operated for many years as a traditional tenting campground 300 km north of Stockholm. It sits at the tip of a peninsula, surrounded by sandy beaches and natural forest. The resort already had a few small cabins but the owners wanted to add some more modern cabins to appeal to a wider clientèle. They approached architect Mats Edlund, who collaborated with architects Henrietta Palmer and Matts Ingman to produce two designs, the larger of which we will look at today.
This small cabin sits on an arid hillside in Casablanca, a grape growing region of central Chile about an hour’s drive northwest of Santiago. It has expansive views of the valleys and ravines below. The clients wanted an unpretentious refuge that would be efficient to build and to use.
photo by FG+SG
This cluster of small cabins is located at a new resort, the Pedras Salgadas Spa and Nature Park, in northern Portugal. Pedras Salgadas is a spa town where people go to rejuvinate in its mineral waters. Architects Luís Rebelo de Andrade and Diogo Aguiar collaborated to design the cabins for the resort.
Pedras Salgadas Spa and Nature Park wanted a variety of different cabin layouts to suit the individual sites on which they’d be placed, so the architects designed the cabins using a modular system. Each cabin consists of three modules, a living area module with the kitchen and a sitting area, an entry module that also houses the bathroom, and a sleeping module with a bedroom and flex space. The living and sleeping modules can join to the entry module in a variety of ways. The result is a system that is standardized yet flexible, yielding dozens of possible cabin plans. Each cabin is adapted to its specific setting, adjusted to fit between the existing trees.
This small cabin in a rural area of central Chile uses little energy and has a low carbon footprint. AATA Arquitectos designed the cabin, opting for a two level floor plan to minimize the site impact. The cabin takes the shape of a cube that is 5.4 m (17’9″) on each side.
Mountain Retreat is a stone and concrete cabin dug into a hillside in the mountains of New Zealand’s South Island. It was designed by Fearon Hay Architects as a year-round retreat for a young family. The entry approach to the small cabin is from above, with only the gravel-covered roof visible. Suddenly a stone staircase appears, leading visitors down to ground level on the downhill side. The low boxy form of the building is visible from there, appearing like a fortified bunker set into the slope. Clad with roughly textured local schist stone, the cabin blends into the rugged landscape.
This small cabin is nestled at the top of Vardehaugen, a large rock outcrop overlooking a fjord in central Norway. The cabin has an angular jagged form that nicely complements its rugged setting. Its location 35 m above sea level gives it panoramic views of the surrounding landscape but also exposes it to the harsh coastal weather.
This small cabin in Chile is a literal cliffhanger, perched on pilings atop a bluff that drops steeply to the Pacific Ocean below. The deck hangs so far over the slope that it gives the impression of being right over the water. One definition of a cabin is a small dwelling of simple construction built from readily available materials. Architects Alvaro Ramírez and Clarisa Elton designed the structure staying true to that definition, and yet the cabin transcends its humble form. As Leonardo da Vinci put it, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
photo by Fabienne Delafraye
It’s Friday and time for a bit of weekend fun. And this is a fun little project, a tiny shed-roofed retreat built to resemble a stack of logs that has been snapped in half. Consider it post-modern log cabin.
