A cabin is defined both by a remote location and a certain rusticity, whether it’s a wilderness hut for hikers or a family retreat, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a basic wooden shack. Modern cabin design shakes up this typology depending on the setting and the user’s needs – it could be a geometric prefab on stilts, a glass-fronted structure hovering over a lake, a series of small off-grid buildings that come together into a cohesive whole, or a totally transparent glass room providing stunning views of its island surroundings.

Kudhva: Cabins Made by a Former Boat Builder

Kudhva is the Cornish term for hideout, appropriately used here as the name for a series of experimental modern cabins by New British Design. Set in a disused slate quarry, the pyramidal cabins were constructed by a boat builder turned furniture maker, primarily using slats of larch wood and pine panels. The cabins are prefabricated offsite. “For as long as I can remember, the fascination an elevated aspect has drawn me to certain objects from diving boards to the umpire’s chair,” says Ben Huggins, founder of New British Design. “The familiar unfamiliarity of seeing an everyday scene or object from a strange position is the genesis of making it interesting again.”

Starfish-Shaped Seastar Trekking Cabin by Prescription

The Seastar trekking cabin by Prescription, set on a Baltic beach, takes its shape from both starfish and the pentagon star icon used on map apps to save locations. Designed to accommodate four hikers at a time, the off-grid cabin offers minimal amenities including showers using collected rainwater. One of the five points contains the woodstove, while the other four offer sleeping nooks for hikers in sleeping bags.

Sunset Cabin by Taylor Smyth Architects

This simple one-room sleeping cabin on the shore of Lake Simcoe by Taylor Smyth Architects combines the rusticity of a hiker’s shelter with the aesthetics of modern homes with the use of a graphic wooden screen. Its inner volume is made of glass, sheltered on there sides by cedar slats and covered with a green roof.

Cabin Laksvatn by Hamran/Johansen Arkitekter

Designed to accommodate large families with a total of 9 beds, Cabin Laksvatn by Hamran/Johansen Arkitekter looks out onto the alpine landscape of Northern Norway. With a footprint of just 150 square feet, the cabin fits all of its common areas onto the bottom level and manages to fit all those beds into nooks beneath the gabled roof.

72h Cabin by JeanArch

The 72h Cabin by JeanArch has been built in multiples and installed on the shores of a private island, some fully enclosed by wooden walls, others completely transparent to take in the surrounding woods and water. Each structure is made of Norway spruce, the same kind of trees that surround it. The cabin is named for the number of hours needed to spend in nature to drastically reduce stress, as found in a study by Karolinska Institute.

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The Modern Cabin 14 Compact Rural Homes Go Beyond The Rustic

If you’ve got an appetite for backcountry exploration but hate setting up tents, perhaps a more comfortable wilderness hut would be a better fit. Designs for home-like retreats in remote locations range from minimalist sci-fi sleeping pods to luxurious vacation properties with modest exteriors that retain the feel of a homesteader’s cabin, and they’re often self-sustainable, portable and low-impact.

Back Country House by David Maurice

Throughout the wilderness of New Zealand, adventurous backpackers can find basic, rustic huts that will put a roof over their heads for a night or two. ‘Back Country House’ by LTD Architectural keeps the spirit of those simple structures while making it a whole lot more comfortable. Designed for the architect’s own family, the home features a spacious terrace that functions as the living room, with an outdoor fireplace and two sunken tubs in the deck keeping it cozy in winter. The pop-up tub covers double as tables for a sunken seating area.

Drew House by Simon Laws

A series of pavilions joined by outdoor walkways offers living space for a family near Queensland, Australia. Though it looks like a reclaimed sewer pipe, the rounded pavilion was just built to that shape using metal sheeting, capped on one end with hardwood louvers. All components were constructed offsite and transported to the plot to minimize disturbance. The passive solar home is self-sufficient, with rainwater tanks and recycling systems, solar power panels and solar hot water.

Tiny House in the San Juan Islands by Prentiss Architects

Overlooking the sea from its perch on Washington’s San Juan Island, Eagle Point Cabin by Prentiss Architects looks modest from the outside, with its rustic wooden facade and grassy roof. But inside, it’s just as comfortable as any high-end home, offering a wood stove, a wall of windows for whale watching, a spacious bedroom and a bathtub with a view.

Eco POD Hotel in Switzerland

Designed by Robust Outdoor Brands, Switzerland’s first eco POD hotel features dreamy little rounded rooms set into a snowy landscape. After dark, when they’re illuminated from within, they look almost too much like a fairytale to be true. Each low-impact room is made with FSC-certified wood and double-glazed windows and accommodates two people.

Tye River Cabin by Olson Kundig

Located in a dense forest near the Tye River in Skykomish, Washington, the Tye River Cabin by Olson Kundig architects is envisioend as a meditative retreat with pivoting glass windows that swing open to blur the lines between outside and in. The architects set the cabin on a concrete base and wrapped the exterior in rusted steel siding.

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Wilderness Huts For Backcountry Glamour 15 Not So Rustic Retreats

In a remote, restricted natural area of Norway that can only be reached by skis, a certain predilection for winter sports is pretty much a necessity – but this cabin design, by Fantastic Norway, takes you one step further with a slanted roof that doubles as a ski slope.

Building restrictions put a limit on the building material, the roof angle and the height of the cabin in a desire to preserve the look of classic mountain lodges in the area. But the client wanted a home that they could actually use as a platform for skiing, sled riding and winter picnicking.

The result is a home that just barely peeks out of the mountainside, blending into the landscape, allowing wind and snow to blow and fall around it just as if it were made of earth or rock. The home contains two bedrooms on the ground floor and a third on the second floor.

Fantastic Norway is known for creating modern, somewhat eerie concepts that are entirely fitting for their remote, icy environments. Two similar projects include House of Families (top), a series of interconnected homes for disadvantaged women and children in Nuuk, Greenland, and a spare, angular coastal cabin situated on a rocky hill.