Contemporary Cabins in the Woods

The term”cabin” draws to obey numerous images and meanings, many of them stemming from Henry David Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond in Massachusetts. His two-year”life in the woods” was stripped to its character and requirements (food, shelter, clothing and fuel), and to the day, cabins are associated with a roughing-it mentality, in which time is spent in nature without modern conveniences.

Many contemporary buildings which embrace the cabin moniker certainly exist because a rest in the city, allowing the owners to live reclusively and close with nature for a short period of time. But they also include the modern conveniences that many people rely upon: power, running water, sanitary plumbing, heating/coolingand telecommunications. This points to the fact that roughing it’s a relative term. The next cabins illustrate these buildings continue to be compact and relatively simple abodes that relate to the natural context in particular ways.

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DeForest Architects

This cabin made by DeForest Architects overlooks Lake Wenatchee in Washington State’s Cascade Mountains. The cabin opens itself up to the stunning lake views by integrating floor-to-ceiling glass. In this view we can see the way the building consists of two volumes which measure down the hill and alternative the slopes of their roofs; this allows views to be had out of volume.

DeForest Architects

Inside, we may see the reason behind the generous glazing because we glance the cold waters visible through the snow and trees.

DeForest Architects

In the approach the house presents itself as primarily shut, with a few tiny openings. The sloped roofing makes it clear that the architects considered the region’s snowfall.

Eggleston Farkas Architects

This cabin is situated in southern Washington, in Port Hadlock, northwest of Seattle. A good deal of these cabins are found in this area, as getting into the outdoors is a favourite pastime, and also the distance between country and city can be quite short.

Eggleston Farkas Architects

The cabin nestles itself against several trees and opens up itself toward the lake views; nonetheless, this really is a common tactic in cabins sites in such places. The cabin is low but it is propped up on footings over the landscape.

Eggleston Farkas Architects

The lifting of this one-story structure allows it to be higher than the landscape between it and the water, among other more practical reasons. The siting of this cabin definitely benefit from an opening in the trees.

FINNE Architects

Designed by Seattle-based FINNE Architects, this second cabin is really situated in the upper peninsula of Michigan state. The small holiday retreat is a very simple box with corrugated metal siding, wood roofing construction, and a rock chimney anchoring one end. Note the glass corner along with the lake view.

FINNE Architects

From inside, similarities with the prior examples are evident: ample glazing, sloping roof, lots of wood. The previous two tie these cabins to Thoreau’s Walden Pond abode, but the last is unquestionably a late 20th-century insulated-glass phenomenon.

Bosworth Hoedemaker

We return into the Seattle area — the San Juan Islands, to be exact. This project created by Bosworth Hoedemaker is really composed of various buildings: a main cabin, a writer’s hut, and a picnic shelter among these. Here we see the main cabin nestled among the trees.

Bosworth Hoedemaker

A closer view of the main cabin reveals the outside porch that’s a primary way of enjoying the distant water views. Full-height glass walls are eschewed in favor of something more conventional, with windows put in timber walls.

Bosworth Hoedemaker

The wraparound porch orients itself toward the water past the trees.

Bosworth Hoedemaker

The author’s hut can be nestled among the trees. Its form is much easier than the main cabin — gable versus hip roof — but the language of materials is similar.

Bosworth Hoedemaker

In spite of small openings, relative to the prior examples, the connection with nature outside is powerful.

Bosworth Hoedemaker

The picnic shelter is constructed of heavy timber and stone, but is otherwise available, sans walls.

Butler Armsden Architects

This previous project, the Yolo County Cabin in upstate California by Butler Armsden Architects, appears very un-cabin-like at first. Sited within a patch of trees on 400 acres of farmland, in the distance it looks like a lighthouse transplanted from elsewhere.

Butler Armsden Architects

This tower is one of two volumes which comprise the cabin; it houses the master bedroom below the roof deck, and also the lower piece includes the living area.

Butler Armsden Architects

The architect describes this lower piece, with its ample porch, as”nearly chicken coop-like.” These two volumes might be at odds with each other concerning materials and orientation, but they’re culled out of an identical vernacular, or so the disjunction functions.

Butler Armsden Architects

Like other examples within this ideabook, views are prized in this cabin, but they are of two kinds: in the living area, the distant views are filtered from the trees and other items in the foreground…

Butler Armsden Architects

Up over the master bedroom, the views are expansive, allowing the owners to take in the entirety of the farmhouse property. Exactly like the lakefront cabins, this one strives to connect the owners using a their surrounding landscape, though it’s more”managed” than, say, a forest or lake. It goes to prove that since the times of Thoreau the expression”cabin” takes on many forms, and that”nature” has many guises.

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