00:04The design concept of Cabin Anna is really that instead of having a static house with closed
00:11boundaries you actually have a transformative cabin where the boundaries are constantly
00:18adjusted by yourself with your own muscle power to what's happening around you.
00:27What basically sparked the beginning of Cabin Anna is that my father he passed away at a young age he
00:34was 55 years old I was 21 at that time and in that period I started having very vivid dreams
00:43of him
00:44he would come back to me and he kind of told me you have to go into nature he was
00:50he was a nature
00:50man what happened is that I basically did the most literal thing you can do I designed a house
00:57that can open up to nature I started to heal I was surrounded by life I literally came to life
01:07so the first Anna that I built was actually for my mother her name is Anna it's become a really
01:13important place for the whole family Anna it's just a place to be that's it a place to be
01:35this cabin Anna is located in Wildlife Reserve of the Biscos it's the freshwater delta the only one in Europe
01:45I didn't choose this location actually we got in touch with the wildlife organization
01:54they were looking for structure that would actually help people open up to the environment and feel at
02:00one with nature this cabin is 30 square meters in its compact form and it can expand to 50 square
02:10meters
02:14another thing that was really important to me in Cabin Anna is the fact that it's demountable so the
02:22whole cabin sits on a screw foundation so it means that when we leave you can take the cabin apart
02:28pack
02:29it up in your truck and move it somewhere else so that means then when we leave with Cabin Anna
02:34we don't
02:35leave anything behind this cabin roughly consists of three parts that would be the fixed house it has
02:44inside the kitchen it has the bathroom toilet shower there's a technical room which can enter from the
02:51backside of the cabin the other part has the the sliding glass layer and the wooden glass layer underneath
02:57that part there is a bed in the ground that can be stored and there's a bath in the ground
03:04also and it has a
03:06mezzanine with a extra bed upstairs so on top of that there's what we always call like the bonus layout
03:13is that
03:13when you push out the glass you actually create a double sized space of 50 square meters so you can
03:19basically host a
03:21dinner or a yoga retreat or whatever events you can imagine
03:35when you arrive in the cabin there's place to leave your coat
03:40in the main living space you see these long allocated windows and they have two purposes one is that you
03:46always have some kind of connection with the outdoors and the other thing is that they don't allow for
03:52any direct sunlight in the summer so on hot summer days the main space actually keeps very cool and then
04:01the first thing that will strike you is all these trusses because basically the sliding shells only have
04:09two walls to rely on instead of a normal house which has four walls there is a challenge in its
04:15rigidity
04:17by using these trusses which are cross braced and reinforced you make sure that when the wind blows from one
04:24side that your
04:24cabin doesn't blow over like that you see similar constructions for example often in railway stations because the
04:32train has to go through on two sides
04:36we put a lot of effort in the thermal envelope and we equip the cabin with HR++ glazing for example
04:42to make sure that even when it's
04:44really cold outside you're going to have a very cozy space inside
04:52the bed is foldable under the ground with a wind system and that was very important to us because in
05:00the
05:00first cabin I built for mom and we had a fixed bed and every time we wanted to change the
05:05use of the
05:06cabin and meant that we have to take out the bed. So being able to fold the bed
05:11under the ground just in a couple of minutes means that you're very flexible
05:15in the use of your space. Once you store the bed you kind of have an open plan
05:22cabin so you can host like a dinner or you can have friends over you can have
05:26yoga sessions. So the bath in the ground is revealed in a similar way as the bed.
05:39It has these floor pieces that you can just lift off and then there's a special
05:43storage to fit them under the ground. I wanted to create this kind of zen
05:49experience when you're in the bath you're not disturbed by any lids that are up
05:55or hinges that are sticking out so. Yet to me the favorite part of the cabin is
06:01really the bath under the floor. You cannot get closer to the essence of life.
06:11We like to create this little invention throughout the cabin and one of them I
06:15think is particularly exciting is what we call the inverted Dutch bike brake system.
06:22The moment you start squeezing this brake the brake releases from the rails and you
06:28can easily move the 3000 kilos but the moment you want to stop you just let go
06:34and automatically it starts breaking on the rails and it helps slow down cabin shell
06:40very quickly. To make most use of the small kitchen space we actually created the galley
06:50kitchen. This combination of stainless steel and the birch ply and we like to work
06:56with stainless steel because it's very durable it's a very beautiful material. It has
07:02all the basic amenities that you need so there's a stove there's a refrigerator here
07:06and then on the other side you have grid that allows for mechanical heating if your wood stove
07:12shouldn't be enough.
07:17In the earlier cabins we didn't have much storage. It becomes messy quite quickly so one thing that we
07:25wanted to redesign is actually to have a lot of big storage space that you can fold nicely away.
07:31And we just wanted to have like sort of one central storage compartment.
07:37And you can fold your folding table in there.
07:42This place is about connecting not just to the environment but also to yourself to food.
07:52So then we arrive at the bathroom. On your left side there's a shower.
07:58It's clad in stainless steel to make sure that it's fully waterproof and it's a very aesthetic material.
08:03And then we clad that with a Koya wood to give that like cozy feel. And we picked a Koya
08:09because
08:09it performs very well in a humid environment.
08:14So in the toilet we use the same principle actually. At the bottom it's clad in stainless steel so fully
08:20waterproof and then we clad that in Koya wood. And above that we use birch plywood.
08:28And then we have this big piece of glass in between the toilet and the shower so you
08:32still feel that strong connection with the outdoors when you're having a shower.
08:37Yeah so we made these wooden hooks everywhere in the cabin just to
08:40blend away in the environment and they're very useful to hang whatever you want.
08:50Above the kitchen there's the mezzanine and we create an extra sleeping place there for when you
08:55have guests over.
08:59And it's basically the same size bed as we have downstairs with a little bit of extra storage
09:04space on each side. In the mezzanine we have a small extra vent to make sure that you can blow
09:11some cool air in the hot summer days.
09:18This cabin is completely off grid. We pump up our water from about 30 meters below the cabin.
09:26The wastewater goes into a three-phase sewage system which means that it's actually so clean that it can
09:32go directly back into the wildlife reserve.
09:36The fireplace is connected to the boiler. In the summer you have your hot water from your solar energy
09:44from the roof but in the winter when there's not so much sun here in the Netherlands you actually heat
09:48your boiler water just by heating your wood stove.
09:54I think one thing that Anna is also really about is that sort of trying to inspire that you can
10:01actually put a lot of quality and a lot of functionality in a very small space.
10:08So you don't have to live in a 100 or 200 square meter house to actually have architecturally very
10:15high quality space.
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