Mini Cabins And ADUs

Just planting the seeds here for what may become a new and potentially more accessible design series.

We spent some time this winter designing a luxury three-season garden shed. It includes the same hand-crafted timber architecture found in our homes and benefits from an airtight SIP enclosure which makes it impervious to rodents and insect pests.

The project inspired us to revisit an idea that we’ve been kicking around for years: designing a series of high-efficiency timber frame outbuildings that could function in an assortment of ways.

The possibilities for a small scale cabin like this are many — a hobby room, yoga studio, pool house, or hunting base all work.

Unlike our homes these cabins can be shipped as a DIY friendly kit and can be assembled by a small crew over a weekend. We’ll provide everything necessary to assemble the timbers, panels, and weather-seal the cabin to ready for roofing and siding.

We don’t have all the technicals sorted out — like all of our stuff this thing is half romance — but we have begun work on a few variations. By using this small project as a jumping off point we recently designed a few downsized modifications to both our Burke and Kirsch timber homes for use as fully winterized ADUs (accessory dwelling units).

We’ve designed outbuildings before and we are constantly working with clients on garages so this was not new to us — it’s just letting us flex our muscles in a different way. We’ll bring all of this into clearer focus in the months ahead.