Designed and built by myself and Kiel Moe, author of Thermally Active Surfaces in Architecture (among others), architect and professor at Harvard's GSD, this small writing cabin on a private meadow in southern Vermont furthered an exploration of solid timber structures and my own construction skills. The site is located a quarter mile into the forest and a half mile from the owner's main house, and is only accessible by a logging road. We lived in a barn on the property during construction and built the entire cabin in three weeks. The 500 sf structure is built on poured concrete foundations, with engineered wood sill plates, beams and headers, and solid wood walls made of 4x6 Eastern White Pine timbers. The entrance room has cabinet storage and accesses a small bathroom with a composting toilet, while the majority of the cabin is a large writing room that looks onto the meadow and Green Mountain National Forest beyond, through a set of sliding glass doors designed to access a future deck.
Most aspects of the project were oriented toward ideas of reconsidered energy use - the solid timber walls provide both structure and insulation, requiring the use of only a small wood burning stove for heat in the winter. To shield the exterior walls from the heating effects of direct sunlight, the entire building is covered in reverse board-and-batten rough sawn hemlock. This effectively shades the insulating thick wood surface from the sunlight and adds an extra protective layer from wind and rain. The entire structure is raised up off the ground by the height of the average winter snow groundcover, eliminating the need to provide extra waterproofing from snowdrifts. The large windows can be partially or fully enclosed by two large doors mounted on sliding a barn-door track.
During construction, my discussions about architectural and building processes with Kiel were transformative to the ways I approached my thesis work the following semester. The project was an excercise in construction techniques, building detailing, on-the-fly problem solving and, due to the lack of a kitchen, barbecue techniques.
