mountain & cloud cabins
Architect:
Wiki World
Year:
2020
Location:
Yichang, Hubei, China
The project consists of 18 timber cabins as hotel rooms, a café house and a swimming pool. The project includes five different types of cabins, ranging in area from 35 m2to 65 m2. The timber cabins adopt a split and single-family design, floating in clouds with point foundations. The facade of the cabin utilizes reflective metal materials, mapping the four seasons in real-time. The building exists and merges with nature.Inspired by nature and the diversity of tea fields and mountains, we have designed unique architectural spaces: bridges in the valleys, spaceships in the woods, viewfinders in the tea fields, and stacked buildings on the hillside. The main structure adopts a German HBE CLT prefabricated system. The main structure can be assembled in one day.
The overall planning and design fully respect the terrain and the environment. The 18 wooden cabins are placed lightly and playfully on the mountain. The point foundation and inverted umbrella-shaped columns minimally disrupt the environment and allowing the wooden cabins to seem floating in the forest. The wooden cabin structure itself uses a matured HBE glue-laminated timber panel system. Its advantages lie in the low deformation rate of the wood and high structural strength. According to shop drawings, the overall assembly accuracy of this structural system ensures the prefabrication of all parts of the wooden house.
The wooden cabin formulates structure and building form according to the standards of energy-saving buildings, assuring a long service life and comfortable use of the internal space. All wooden cabins are supplied with hotel intelligence, air conditioners, water heaters, and a fresh air system. Some cabins additionally have fireplaces.
The interior is configured in a Nordic minimalist style, primarily created by the purist wood texture forming a natural and refined atmosphere.
Mirrored metal plates and wooden grilles articulate the building's facade. The fragmented reflection of the mirrored surface blends the wooden cabin into the environment. It can be hidden from time to time in the unique dense misty landscape in the mountains, giving the tea garden a quiet and mysterious appearance.
The Mountain & Cloud Cabins project by Wiki World is an example of New Wood Open Architecture using prefab CLT wood construction to create elegant sustainable dwellings, connecting the inhabitants with the natural context in which they sit. Given the sheer beauty and biodiversity of the mountainous site on which these cabins are located, Wiki World minimized the extent of site intervention caused by each cabin. The cabin's footprints are small and elevated off the forest floor, preserving the ecology below. Pier foundations minimize the extent to which the ground ecology was disturbed and provides the cabins with a level foundation despite the sloping site.
This philosophy is further demonstrated through the chosen construction material and process. The prefabricated CLT panels were manufactured off-site and delivered for final assembly. The raw material that comprises the CLT panels has sequestered carbon from the atmosphere, significantly offsetting the embodied carbon of each small dwelling. This method drastically reduces the total time and impact on-site, ultimately protecting the existing trees and flora. The cabins themselves aim to connect the inhabitants with the surrounding landscape. The small floor plans and large openings create an inevitable connection with the outdoors, reminding the inhabitant that they play a role in protecting and preserving the surrounding ecosystem.
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