Home to some of the absolute best hiking, sightseeing, and skiing the country has to offer, the state of Colorado now gets to add yet another adventurous feather to its outdoorsy cap: micro wooden cabins. Located within a lodgepole pine forest in Leadville, the collection of cabins were originally constructed to serve as mini dormitories for the Colorado Outward Bound School. However micro they might seem, these cabins are sure to make any avid outdoorsmen salivate at the opportunity of enjoying a calming Colorado night in one.
As mentioned above, each cabin resides on the side of a forested hilltop, allowing for gorgeous views of the surrounding mountainside as well as Colorado’s Mosquito Range. University of Colorado Denver’s Colorado Building Workshop (the group who built the cabins), designed the array of homes to feature what it calls “public community” views, that is, each structure faces into one another to create one big social area. To compliment these social areas, each cabin’s front porch — as well as the negative space between each cabin — all face into the same direction.
What’s perhaps most impressive about these stunning cabins is the fact the Colorado Building Workshop had just three weeks to construct the entire lot. Because of this, the team envisioned each structure as being comprised of two separate pieces: a box and a frame. Prefabricated as the cabin’s living quarters, the box sits in a frame underneath a snow roof adept at keeping winter snow from accumulating on the structure’s actual roofing. Moreover, the frame consists of storage space for any tenants larger outdoor gear like bicycles, skis and snowboards, or boats.
Each cabin’s exterior boasts steel cladding and vertical columns which the construction team hopes minimizes its visual impact and gives off more of a natural, minimalist feel. The company outfit the interiors with birch plywood that had been specially milled to act as desks, storage drawers, and a bed for the occupants. As of this writing, there’s no word as to whether or not the Colorado Building Workshop allows any ordinary person to hunker down in these cabins for the night but there’s no denying the sheer beauty of the finished product.
