Cabins have been a relaxing and quintessential getaway option for everyone for ages galore. They’re the ultimate safe haven in the midst of nature, if you simply want to get away from your hectic city lives, and unwind. If you want a simple and minimal vacation, that lets you truly connect with nature, without any of the materialistic luxuries most of us have gotten accustomed to, then a cabin retreat is the answer for you! And, we’ve curated some beautiful and super comfortable cabins that’ll be the perfect travel destination for you. From an intriguing tiny pentagonal cabin to an elevated prefab cabin with a buffer zone to help protect it against harsh climate – these mesmerizing and surreal cabins are the ultimate retreat, you’ve been searching for!
1. The Grand-Pic Chalet
Measuring 1464sqf, Grand-Pic Chalet certainly is grand, yet still unassuming amidst the surrounding birch trees. Taking note of the wooded area’s flora and saplings, the architects at Appareil let the trees and forest guide their design process. Inspired by the lanky birch trees around Grand-Pic Chalet, Appareil architects clad the cottage in corrugated steel to complement the organic vertical lines found throughout the forest. Cloaked by lush black facades, come dusk the Grand-Pic Chalet disappears into the dark like a rider in the night.
2. Cabin A24
DDAA (Dev Desai Architects and Associates), an offshoot from a firm specializing in residential villas and interiors, designed its own line of unique cabins to capture our gaze. The RCA – 03, or Cabin A24 is a prefabricated tiny cabin that keeps a unique pentagonal shape and comes fully furnished with a bathroom, kitchenette, and living space. Designing Cabin A24, the team behind DDAA hoped to achieve a distinct architectural identity without compromising the tiny home’s household efficiency, amenities, or spatial functionality. Cozy and petite by design, Cabin A24 forms two halves.
3. Bivouac Fanton
Architecture firm Demogo built this small zinc-clad hiker’s cabin, perched on a cliff edge in the Marmarole mountain edge in the Dolomites. Bivouac Fanton was created as a free, emergency shelter for hikers. It’s been equipped with bunk beds to accommodate up to 12 people. The 30-square-meter cabin was built to provide shelter and protect hikers from, as well as celebrate the wild surroundings.
4. Cara R
Cara R is perched in the Andes Mountains in Southern Chile giving views of the vast parklands and nature reserves. It is the ideal destination to be immersed in nature but the area is also known for its extreme climatic conditions and that is exactly what Cara R’s design aims to guard against – nothing can stand between you and a cozy night at your cabin in the woods! On the first floor, there is a woodshed and a chiflonera.” This area between the interiors and exteriors is commonly found in Chilean or Patagonian homes because it helps to regulate the extreme temperature changes that occur in that region. It features a steel frame because stell is both water and fire-resistant!
5. System 00
System 00 is described as Backcountry’s “essentialist A-frame shelter.” Stocked with only the essentials, System 00 measures 10’x10’ and was designed to welcome living spaces such as a single bedroom with room for one sleeping bunk, a meditation studio for yoga, or an open space for working on art. Backcountry’s smallest cabin, System 00 was designed to be self-assembled by a team of four to five builders within a week. Requiring no heavy machinery, System 00 is the only cabin from Backcountry’s catalog that does not require a construction permit.
6. Iniö
Iniö is a prefabricated log home from Pluspuu designed for a Switzerland-based Finnish couple who’d like a holiday retreat in their hometown of Heinola. Pluspuu currently keeps a catalog of twelve prefabricated log houses. Out of the twelve, the couple settled on Iniö for its rustic personality that’s interwoven with distinct modern touches like expansive floor-to-ceiling windows and a bright, unstained wooden interior. Iniö comes as a two-level, three-bedroom log house stationed behind lofty eaves that create plenty of overhang for the home’s wraparound patio.
7. Meteorite
This cabin in the woods is an otherworldly, all-black, geometric structure built to provide cozy refuge even in harsh Finnish winters. It was designed for a California-based CEO who returned home to Finland with her family to be closer to her ancestral land so she could maintain it. The cabin is aptly named Meteorite based on its unique shape and is set in a clearing surrounded by spruce and birch trees. The cabin is made entirely from cross-laminated timber (CLT) which is a sustainable alternative to other construction materials. The three-story home is built entirely from 272 prefabricated panels of cross-laminated, locally sourced timber—a sustainable material that lends itself to digital design methods and follows the Finnish tradition of timber construction.
8. Chilean Ski Cabin
Iragüen Viñuela Arquitectos built a two-story holiday cabin from the foundation of a previous building project in Chile. The quaint Chilean ski cabin can accommodate up to 12 people.”The platform had been built in a small clearing in the forest, without cutting any trees, right at the tip of the peninsula, which allowed it to be surrounded by the river, with spectacular views towards the forest and up the hillside,” the architects explained.
9. The Low Country Cottage
Infused with minimalist details and outfitted with rustic charm, the Low Country cottage was inspired by the marshlands of Savannah and Charleston. Born and raised on a farm in Alabama, Low Country architect Jeffrey Dungan understands southern coziness like his own backyard. Citing the tiny home’s bucolic detailing, Dungan asks of Low Country, “What could be more southern than a porch with bracket supports and hand-made details like carved rafter tails at the eaves for good measure?”
10. Cabin of Hope
Moazzen’s Cabin of Hope fuses indoor and outdoor living with its main cantilevered A-frame structure that opens up to a veranda overlooking the nearby lake. Shaped like a zig-zag, all three A-frame structures that give rise to the Cabin of Hope are connected at the cabin’s wooden deck base and interwoven outdoor walkway. To achieve an air of contemporary design, Moazzen blended the traditional aspects of cabins like wooden foundations and exposed beams with more modern edges like LED window frames and optic white finishes that cool down the wood’s smokier accents. Dark wooden beams line the angled walls inside each A-frame cabin, further showcasing Moazzen’s commitment to bridging classic cottage elements with notes of contemporary escapism.