Forestone Cabin: Regenerative Architecture in the Pyrenees

The architectural logic of Forestone Cabin is closely tied to its site. Its faceted geometry recalls a rock that has naturally come to rest on the sloping terrain, with inclined walls and a pitched roof responding to climatic exposure, solar orientation and interior programme.

Within a reduced footprint, subtle variations in ceiling height define distinct spatial conditions, allowing students to explore how geometry, structure and use interact at a small scale. Openings are carefully positioned to frame views of the Pyrenean landscape while enabling cross-ventilation, and operable wooden shutters ensure complete darkness at night—an essential condition given the site’s use for astronomical observation.

These decisions emerged through iterative testing within the academic studio, where spatial, environmental and constructive considerations are addressed simultaneously.

Material experimentation forms a central part of the project. The structure and envelope are built using locally sourced cross-laminated timber panels, while the exterior façade is clad in pine boards charred using the Japanese Yakisugi technique.

Through this process, students explored how traditional wood treatments can improve durability and fire resistance without chemical additives. The act of charring the timber—carried out by the students themselves—also introduces a conceptual layer, engaging directly with fire as both a risk and a management tool in Pyrenean forest landscapes.

In this sense, Forestone becomes a material study on how architecture can respond to forestry management, climate conditions and long-term ecological responsibility through construction choices.

Inside, the cabin is conceived as a continuous wooden environment. Custom CLT elements—including the bed, built-in furniture, seating and washbasin counter—were designed and fabricated by the students as part of the programme’s hands-on methodology.

This work took place at Valldaura Campus, where students engage with locally sourced materials and full-scale fabrication as an integral part of their education. Material cycles extend beyond timber: during a wool festival in the nearby town of Sort, students collaborated with local farmers to collect sheep’s wool, later processed into felt and textile elements that now furnish the cabin.

A stone washbasin, carved by hand from a rock collected on site, further anchors the project in its geographical and cultural context. These elements are not decorative additions, but part of an architectural process that treats sourcing, transformation and use as interconnected design decisions.

Forestone Cabin exemplifies the educational model of the Master in Ecological Architecture and Advanced Construction, where design, research and construction form a single, continuous process. Students engage with real contexts and constraints, working at full scale and understanding architecture as a material, ecological and territorial practice.

Key topics such as regenerative forestry, low-impact construction, circular material systems and fire-aware design are addressed not as abstract ideas, but as operative tools embedded in the act of building. Modular systems, dry-assembly techniques and locally sourced materials shape a learning framework grounded in experimentation and environmental responsibility.

Now open to guests at MónNatura Pirineu, Forestone Cabin allows visitors to inhabit the outcomes of this process. As a built and usable structure, it demonstrates how projects developed within IAAC’s Master in Ecological Architecture and Advanced Construction translate into architecture that can be built, inhabited and adapted through hands-on experimentation.

Direction
Vicente Guallart
Daniel Ibáñez
Michael Salka

Developed by
Students of the Master in Ecological Architecture and Advanced Construction
Class 2024/25:

Alexander Bruce Herbig
Ateet Singh
Atticus Cummings
Breno Teixeira Martinelli
Dammes de Zoeten
Georgia Ann Hoyer
Isabel Flores
Jasper Runge
Magdalena Kurdzialek
Nina Poort
Pragyna Madhav Thondapu
Reuben Diamond
Shivani Edukulla
Shanon Shahan
Santosh Shyamsundar
Sipan Celiker Sporidis

Host
MónNatura Pirineu
Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera

Valldaura Management
Laia Pifarré

Project Coordination
Esin Aydemir

Assisted by
Bruno Ganem
Oliver Needham
Alkis Avarkiotis

Structural assembly
Fustes Sebastià
(Sergi Sebastià, Emma Sebastià Sarroca, Estel Arnal Llunell)
Tallfusta
(Ignasi Caus, David Valldeoriola)

Advisors
Miquel Rodriguez
Elena Orte
Guillermo Sevillano
Firas Safieddine
Rian van Dijk

With the support of
Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera

Volunteers
Andrew Cardona
Grace Yang
Maeve Daley
Sam Hoshin

Photography
Adrià Goula
Alexander Herbig (Autumn series)
Nina Poort (Winter series)

Drawings and diagrams
Students of the Master in Ecological Architecture and Advanced Construction

Communication
Pati Núñez Agency