Located on the tranquil island of Trossö, Sweden, this cabin for two combines a quaint and woodsy atmosphere with contemporary design and amenities. Small enough to be homebuilt, the tiny house actually was designed by Septembre, a Paris-based urban architecture firm. Its structure is entirely of wood, with a simple floorplan made up of two unconnected rooms, a bedroom and a sauna. More than just a weekend house, however, the vacation cottage has fully insulated walls and storage for clothing, allowing its owners to stay as long as they wish. The exterior is finished in smooth black-painted pine, while the insides keep the natural finish of the woods used. Windows and the height of the roof are used to great advantage, opening up the little house and making it an uncramped space.
The owners of the cabin stipulated that its design should leave little to no trace on the landscape, and that no trees be cut down to make room for it. The woods around the little dwelling are preserved, helping to bring nature to vacationing residents without diluting it.
The cottage is constructed entirely of two different types of wood, a local breed of pine being used for the exterior finish, the sauna walls, and the bedroom floors. Most interior surfaces are plywood, giving the building a homebuilt feel despite its urban design source.
The cabin sits on a natural slope, and structural stilts of various heights help level it out while working towards the preservation of the landscape as well.
The living room/bedroom and the sauna are entered through two separate outside doors, keeping the muggy moisture of the latter out of the more dry atmosphere of the former.
Unpainted wooden accents are used to help introduce the interior’s lighter hue at the entrance to the main cabin’s single room. A sliding door, provides an entrance.
The inside of the main space contains two different floor sections to define living and sleeping areas, with a variation in floor height as the border. The sloped ceiling of the dwelling helps to keep its compact floorplan airy.
With the sliding door open, another light source adds to the already immense glass area of the room, which is bordered on three of its walls by wide openings.
In the main room, plywood is used for the walls and ceilings while pine of matching coloration is used in the form of more elegant floorboards.
With its simple wood decor and huge window space, the little secluded bedroom is thoroughly connected to the forest around it. However, color-matched paper or cloth curtains are built into the bedroom for privacy’s sake.
Easily the most colorful piece of the house, the bed and its raised platform are large enough to comfortably accommodate the couple who owns the property.
Storage is essential for weekends or summers on the island; this pull-out solution keeps clothes out of the reach of the elements and out of the way of the residents.
When the bedroom door is fully opened, it expands usable living space by almost a hundred percent onto the corner deck. During days of good weather, this makes the cabin much more roomy.
The other interior section of the cabin, its sauna, is set under the end slope of the rooftop. More pine is used on the walls here than in the bedroom, heightening the room’s visual design.
Septembre Architecture
