View from the room

G&G _ Magazine presents the selection of the Best Cabins & Lodges in the world: where the architecture blends with the surrounding landscape and allows to admire the beauty of nature. Where people are part of that landscape.

1. Wiki World- Mountain&Cloud Cabins / Yichang, China Inspired by nature and the diversity of tea fields and mountains and designed and built by WikiWorld and Advanced Architecture Lab, the timber cabins adopt a split and single-family design, floating in clouds with point foundations. The overall planning and design fully respects the terrain and the environment. The wooden cabins are placed lightly on the mountain like wood cube toy. The point foundation and inverted umbrella-shaped columns bring minimal damage to the environment and allow the wooden cabins to float in the forest.

2. Hotel Feelviana / Viana do Castelo, Portugal Drawn up specifically for the location and proposed in function of its unique characteristics by architect Carlos Castanheira, small houses of different sizes, similar but not identical, are assembled and carefully distributed between the pine trees, where there is sufficient space for them to be inserted. The materials were used that already found in the locale like the wood of the constructions, and some glass enabling the interior to extend into the exterior.

3. andBeyond Ngala Tree House / South Africa South African based Fox Browne Creative, created an overnight retreat for the guests of the luxury travel company and Beyond in the Timbavati Private Game Reserve on the edge of Kruger National Park. 52 stairs transport guests from the shade of the nearby trees at ground level, up through the tree canopy, to the rooftop of this twelve-metre-tall structure. At less than 25m², each level offers a different aspect of the sleep-out experience: a personal kitchenette and bar at the ground floor, a ‘loo with a view’ on a mezzanine level, an indoor/outdoor shower and vanity one level up, a fully glazed bedroom on the third floor and a rooftop viewing deck and sleep-out platform at the top. Each level is hung from a prefabricated steel frame and clad in tongue-and-groove hardwood planks lending a hand-made sentiment to the guest experience.

4. Koto Home Office #1 / United Kingdom Koto Design have created a cabin that serves as a place of deep work and mediation, a contemplative room and an immersive space to a contemplative room and an immersive space to connect with the nature.

5. Cabin Stokkøya / Åfjord, Norway Kappland arkitekter AS projected an all-year cabin for a family of five at Stokkøya, an island situated on the outermost coast of Trøndelag. Situated on a hillside, the site offers dramatic views in two directions; towards Linesøya, the open sea and horizon to the west and towards the landscape to the north. The building follows the terrain and forms a stepped unit on the hillside, creating several levels, both indoors and outdoors. The main unit is a narrow sloping roof-unit, parallel to the contours of the terrain. The inclination of the roof follows the inclination of the slope. At each end of the extended main unit, smaller units step up towards the south and down towards the north.

6. Tree House / Ubud, Bali, Indonesia Surrounded by jungle to the sides and rice terraces in the front, Treehouse by Pablo Luna Studio is a suite from the boutique hotel Stonehouse. It stands five meters above the ground thanks to its strong and long bamboo pillars. Also its ceiling is made from bamboo splits creating a grid-shell that derives its strength from its double curvature. The overall shape shows the integration of architecture and environment, and the relationship between space and nature. The interior floor is also made from bamboo splits that smoothly transitions into a wooden terrace. This moment in the building highlights the wall-less space that keeps indoors and outdoors as one unity.

7. 019 Cabin / Vilnius, Lithuania ŠA atelier created a transportable cabin with a structure as a set of individual elements consisting of columns, floors, walls, roof, etc. In such way the building can be transported in assembled or individual elements depending on the situation. Modular system allows to construct different sizes and configurations of the building. At the base design stage it is unknown where the building will appear. The only known context is the climate elements such as sun, wind and water. As a result, the roof of the cabin protects the structure from the heat of the sun and has a shape that collects rainwater, pours it from one plane to another and exhibits water flow.

8. Abodu Homes / USA Koto Design have teamed up with USA based Abodu to designed their first modular home, bringing Koto’s signature Scandinavian simplicity with a Californian twist. Each home can be supplied with a range of finishes and premium appliances from Wolf and Fisher & Paykel. Landscaping, external decking and a curated furniture packages are also available, creating a hassle-free, turn-key rental solution.

9. Kudhva / United Kingdom Projected by New British Design, Kudhva ( meaning hideout in Cornish) are a series of wilderness cabins situated in a disused slate quarry on the north coast of Cornwall. The Kudhva are a physical manifestation of the client’s approach to natural living. The cabins are constructed from structural, insulated paged-pine panels with an EDPM rubber membrane covering. A larch-slatted skin covers the cabin that is elevated above the ground on turned pine poles. While galvanised steel is used for all railings, ladders, frame jointing and ground connections, providing both ease of assembly and extended life span of all timber elements.

10. Gheralta Lodge I / Hawzen, Ethiopia Nicole Cieri Architects designed the lodges completely disconnected from the frantic city life where the guests can be surrounded by nature and enjoy the view of the spectacular mountains punctuated with rocky churches of the Gheralta massif, in northern Ethiopia. In a hostile environment burned by the sun and beaten by the wind, man seeks shelter. To achieve a synthesis between modernity and tradition, as well as pursue a strategy of durability and cost reduction, the architects decided to rely on local materials, the same ones used for centuries by the Tigrinya farmers: dry-stone walls, wooden ceilings and green roofs.

11. Bigwin Island Club Cabins / Baysville, Canada MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects projected 40 guest houses on Bigwin Island respecting the region's distinctive architectural aesthetic, and the environment, employing practical construction techniques and maximizing energy efficiency and sustainability. Exquisitely crafted from natural materials, with a quietly assertive design, the cabins reference the big, sheltering roofs of Muskoka’s historic cottages and boathouses, and even evoke the interior of a canoe, without ever veering into kitsch.

12. Space of Mind / Porvoo, Finland Studio Puisto's modern cabin acts as a dedicated space to think, recharge and unwind. Through a modular system, the cabin can serve as anything from a bedroom to a gym to a home office with the flexibility to be placed anywhere. The outer wooden structure acts as a blank slate while the interior is adjustable to individual needs and preferences creating an ideal functional space.

13. TreeHouse / Cascais, Portugal Madeiguincho designed a shelter with the aim to include three trees in the project that act as a support. A Cedar that crosses the project and two Tipuan that can delimit the platform. The house is built in CLT panels and a cedar roof while the entire exterior of the house was burned to better preserve the wood and subsequently bathed in linseed oil, allowing to gain a cool and raw texture.

14. Cabin Y dmvA architecten's design of this cabin is based on simplicity, self-sufficiency, budget-friendliness, and the use of circular materials. Thanks to its lightness the cabin is easily transportable with a truck with a flatbed trailer. To neutralize the tensile and compressive forces when lifting with a crane, an intelligent system of ten wooden porches connected by X-shaped stainless steel tension cables was used.

15. Lost Whiskey / Delaplane, Virginia, USA GreenSpur's Lost Whiskey is about exploring our personal limits of slowing down and simplifying. This 160 sq.ft. all concrete structure is one part Scandinavian minimalism and two parts Virginia countryside. The off-grid structure is almost maintenance free and should look and function the same 100 years from now. But the secret ingredient is the escape; the trees, a warm blanket, some quality time on the mountain. It’s meant to bring out the best versions of ourselves.

16. The Cabin / South Moravia, Czech Republic Jan Tyrpekl projected an experimental wooden structure that was built on top of a former concrete bunker near to the borders of the Czech republic and Austria. Due to the character of the landscape the shelter was designed as a dominant vertical volume. The principle of the construction was to minimize the material, cost and the time needed for the construction. The building is very simple and can be built by manual labour using only common tools without any technology.