Hospitality · 2023
Birchwood Retreat
Door County, WI
The project
Twelve dark timber cabins and a lodge scattered through a birch forest, placed so that no cabin can see another.
Each cabin sits on steel screw piles, leaving the forest floor and its roots untouched.
Inside, everything is built in: the bed, the bench, the bath and the window seat that looks straight into the trees.
Design moves
Zero tree loss
Every cabin threaded between existing trunks.
Dark sky
Low, shielded lighting throughout.
Wood stoves
Heated by locally harvested timber.
Prefabricated
Cabins built off site in eight weeks.
Sustainability
- Screw pile foundations
- Charred larch cladding
- Composting toilets in the forest
- Solar hot water
Project data
- Client
- Birchwood Hospitality Group
- Typology
- Hospitality
- Location
- Door County, WI
- Gross floor area
- 1,850 m²
- Completion
- 2023
- Project team
- Jonas Roe, Ines Albers
- Recognition
- Wisconsin Design Awards, Hospitality 2024
More work
