Tag: pine architecture

This Tiny Pine-Lined Cabin is a Haven for Alpine Hikers

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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Living full-time in a tiny house isn’t for everyone, but there are lots of opportunities to see for yourself what it feels like to stay in one overnight. Once rare, tiny house rentals are available just about everywhere now. But would you have imagined that you can hike to one hidden all the way up in the Italian Alps?

Architects Andrea Cassi and Michele Versace built a modern black mountain shelter with a prefabricated metal exterior and all-pine interior, designed to shelter hikers in an extreme landscape. Because its exterior is black, it will stand out even in high snow levels in the winter, so it’s easy to find. The color also helps heat up the interior.

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The designers chose pine because it’s easy to work with, affordable, readily available and infuses the interior with a fresh, pleasant scent. It’s also the material traditionally used in the Alpine tradition to make cradles and bedroom surfaces. The inside is simple and minimalist, featuring stepped surfaces on either side of a table that can be used as seats or beds.

“In physics a black body is an ideal object that totally absorbs the energy, re-irradiating it in the surrounding environment. Leaning on a small pass beneath the last slopes near the summit,  Bivacco Matteo Corradini is a dark prism with an hexagonal profile, nestled in the alpine landscape. A metal shell capable of protecting it from high altitude extreme weather conditions and absorbing the maximum solar radiation. Materials and volumes have been designed in relation to the landscape: steep crests of dark rock from which grassy slopes and rocks develop, completely covered with snow in the winter season. A discreet interference that, like an inhabited land art work, defines unexpected points of view in the natural landscape.”

“The interior of the bivouac is composed of a system of wooden steps that develop on the two short sides of the building, around a central table. The six wooden steps, three on each side, become beds for the night while, during the day, they define a system of seats overhanging the slope of the mountain. A cosy, welcoming, and convivial nest: a meeting place at 3000 meters above sea level, for the community of mountaineers.”

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Designed as modules that can be easily assembled on site, these wooden elements were built and partially pre-assembled in the workshop, then transported by helicopter and reassembled on the mountain. The shelter, known as the Matteo Corroding bivouac, is located a few meters from the Dormillouse summit in the upper Valle di Susa. It’s a popular destination for ski mountaineering and offers incredible views year-round.

Pine Chicken Coop Styled Like a Miniature Log Cabin

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

Pine chicken coop log cabin

Have you seen any fun uses of pine lumber lately? This one is pretty cool: a wooden chicken coop installed on the wooded grounds of a summer house in rural Finland, styled to resemble a scaled-down log cabin.

Designed by London-based studio Chan Brisco Architects, the Kana Talo chicken house adapts a local traditional architecture style for use by up to eight chicken residents. It’s common to see stacked log construction throughout the Nordic region, which makes use of all the tall, straight pine trees growing in the area.

Pine chicken coop log cabin stacked on logs

Located on the southern shore of Lake Porovesi just a few hours from the Arctic Circle, the chicken house sits beside a log-built summer house, sauna and wood storage shed. The clients wanted a coop the hens could enjoy during the summer months that would also fit in with the other structures.

The architects note that today’s timber frame buildings are often placed on concrete foundations, but they wanted to honor the local tradition of stacking the logs above and between large stones gathered from the landscape.

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“The practice has looked to this culture of building, well recognised by local Savonians, to form a design approach that will be familiar but with its own attractive and perhaps peculiar accent.”

“Set atop four large granite stones, the wooden structure joins the hand-hewn, stacked and notched, interlocking timbers of the pine-rich region. Raising the structure limits its exposure to wet ground, ensures it dries swiftly, and puts at ease the birds within who prefer to sleep off of the ground – a raked roost extends this consideration inside.”

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A single stair carved out of driftwood offers hens access to the interiors, which are well ventilated with a series of cored openings in the perimeter beam. The timber is finished with a clear matte protective coating, which the owners will maintain each summer.

Treehouse-Inspired Retreat Features Pale Pine Interiors

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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Gazing out at the treetops just never gets old. It’s a simple pleasure that grounds us, reminding us to be grateful for the natural world. Cabins that make prime forest views a top priority achieve a special kind of ambiance that doesn’t rely on any kind of luxuries, just the presence of the trees and their calming characteristics.

A recent project by Midland Architecture in Belmont County, Ohio calls treehouses to mind with its peaked roof and location on the edge of a ridge, making it level with the crowns of many trees just beyond its windows. Built sustainably off the grid, “The Hut” was featured on an episode of the Discovery network’s Building Off the Grid series, and received a 2019 AIA Ohio Architecture Honor Award.

The Hut Midland Architecture

Set in a secluded location, the cabin is rustic, but never dark or drab. Plentiful windows and skylights let natural light filter through the trees to enter, but it’s the Eastern White Pine interiors that really make it pop. Check out how the whitewashing of the floors allows the grain to shine through, while the vertical paneling draws the eye up to the high ceiling, making the space feel bigger than it is.

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“The cabin, tucked in woods, was a labor of love for Greg Dutton, his brother Chris and father John, who worked together to build the secluded retreat. The project site, now a working cattle farm, which the family purchased in 1981, was originally part of a strip mine, and through their stewardship, has been reclaimed by forest, grasslands and lakes.”

“The off-grid retreat was inspired by Scandinavian design and the ‘hygge’ mindset. The structure is sided with cedar shingles and sits amongst trees, atop a high bank overlooking a lake. Designed for peace of mind; the outside setting is brought in through a wide expanse of floor to ceiling windows. Touching the earth lightly with a minimalistic foundation of concrete piers the sustainably built space runs off solar power and collected rainwater.”

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“Heavily influenced by aspects of farming, the cabin was constructed using building techniques born out of tradition and logic, with simple materials used economically. The overall concept and design for the retreat demonstrate an emphasis on craft, in a style that we like to call ‘country minimalism.’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swxaczHmSiw

You can see how “The Hut” was built by a team of family and friends on this episode of Building Off the Grid.

Modern Pine House Looks Out Over a Lake

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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When a project makes use of natural materials that are abundant in the area, the results almost always feel especially harmonious with the setting. That’s definitely true for this beautiful modern retreat featuring two cantilevered upper stories that give it the look of a telescope gazing out at the view.

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Designed for a challenging steeply sloped site, “Casa Rapel” sites on the edge of Lake Rapel, about two hours from the city of Santiago in Chile. While the bones of the house are made of steel and concrete, architecture firm Hsü Rudolphy wanted to give it a “skin” of wood that would warm it up and create a cohesive transition to the trees outside.

As a result, it’s wrapped in pine inside and out. The horizontal cladding on the exterior is covered in a protective treatment that darkens the tone to avoid sharp contrasts with the steel and protect it from the elements. In Chile, pine is one of the most common and economical types of native wood available, so it’s all locally sourced.

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“We wanted to find simple solutions, simple finishes, but arranged efficiently, to achieve an optimal result for users, with low maintenance and high durability and finally move their inhabitants with the quality of the spaces and their relation with the landscape.”

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The design of the house aims to create minimal interference with the natural setting, so its three levels are staggered to follow the line of the slope without building into it. This also protects it from erosion. Everything is oriented toward the lake to maximize those all-important views.

Sleep Inside Huge Pine Wine Barrels at This Fun Hotel

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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Do you love wine so much, you almost wish you could curl up inside a barrel and go to sleep? Believe it or not, there’s a hotel where you can do just that – but thankfully, the barrels are a lot larger than average.

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A hotel in Portugal’s Douro wine country lets wine lovers take their vineyard touring experience to a whole new level. At the Quinta de Pacheca, ten gigantic “wine barrels” made of pine contain luxurious suites with round beds and private bathrooms.

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Each one looks out onto the 116-year-old estate’s grapevines through round glass doors that open onto small terraces.

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Designed by the vineyard’s owners, Paulo Pereira and Maria do Céu Conçalves, the 270-square-foot barrels feature modern fixtures, walk-in showers, skylights, wi-fi and air conditioning.

They definitely provide a unique experience, and they’re great examples of cool and unusual architecture made of pine. Have you spotted any awesome pine structures, or created one yourself? Let us know in the comments!

Jenga House: An Unusual Stacked Pine Facade

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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Lately, we’re seeing a lot of modern homes making use of pine in creative new ways. In the Australian town of Coledale, where new residences are increasingly popping up among the old miner’s cottages, the fittingly named “Jenga House” is sheathed in an open arrangement of stacked pine to give it its own distinct personality.

Created by Takt Studio, “Jenga House” is actually a secondary volume to the larger “Blade House,” providing space for guests so the resident family of four can “share the wonderful locale” with friends and family. While the main part of the home uses wood to warm up a largely concrete structure, the smaller volume has a more organic feel.

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“Those stacked timber walls recall drying stacks in local timber yards, and erosion in nearby ocean cliffs. Their materiality is driven by an exploration of cheaper rough-sawn pine as external layer,” say the architects.

“Detailing is direct and simple; and material choices prefer the least expensive possible for the required performance. Basic construction materials were used as finished products – such as pine stacked timber walls and recycled concrete landscaping walls. The project utilises solar passive design principles in a unique way and seeks to maximise green space on a very tight site. Vertical facades and boundary walls are designed to support climbing plants over time.”

“Under the escarpment, close to the sea, this new home and secondary dwelling explores landscape, light and a sense of community.”

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The architects chose these materials to stand up to both local weather and the constant influx of sand from the adjacent beach.The stacked wooden facade protects the interior of the guest house from harsh sunlight, but it’s also permeable, letting in cool breezes at any opportunity. It also projects a friendlier, more intimate feel to passersby on the street outside.