Cart 
Nestled in the backyard of an existing home in Albert Town, in New Zealand’s South Island, this little cabin was deliberately designed to offer more ‘garden than house’.
Yakisugi Cabin is a passion project from Alki Design founder Charlotte Muschamp and her partner Stefan Warnaar of StrawSIPs — a company that manufactures high-performance, prefabricated straw-timber structural panels.
In addition to its compact 40-square-metre footprint and use of recycled materials, the couple designed the dwelling to be relocatable, elevated on piles for a light touch on its natural environment.
But on a personal level, it also served as a bit of a trial run of the area: ‘We wanted to live in the mountain town we love while we looked for the piece of land where we might eventually put down longer-term roots,’ Charlotte says.
‘We lease this site, so it made sense to create a home we could take with us when that time comes.’
Just two years since the project began, what was once an ‘uninspiring patch of weedy grass’ has become their everyday home.
Rather than designing first and specifying materials later, the architecture was developed around materials already carrying a history. Charlotte admits it took months of sourcing to pull together the pieces, from the timber windows and doors to untreated macrocarpa cypress grown on her family farm in Southland. Even the oak flooring and corrugated metal roof were reclaimed.
Inside, every inch of space has been maximised with integrated joinery. Designed as a straightforward rectangle, the small footprint contains a bathroom, while the streamlined kitchen, built-in day bed and workspace are all located within the main living area.
A Murphy bed pulls down from the wall, swiftly transitioning the central space into the bedroom at night.
‘We don’t really think of it as a tiny home; it’s a fully functioning home that happens to be small. Its size lets us devote more of the site to the garden. Living among the mountains, we wanted to respect the land and give more to it than we took from it,’ Charlotte says.
The exterior features yakisugi cladding, a Japanese technique for charring timber also known as shou sugi ban, which allows the building to recede into the now immersive landscape.
For sustainability, the cabin incorporates greywater reuse with an incinerating toilet. Constructing the home from modular StrawSIPs gave the dwelling a highly insulated, airtight envelope, aided by passive solar gain and a mechanical heat-recovery ventilation system to maintain a stable temperature — even through Wānaka’s alpine winters and sub-zero temperatures.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the project is how the low-impact build has completely regenerated the surrounding landscape into something of a dreamy meadow.
‘Straw offcuts from Stefan’s StrawSIP panels were mulched into the ground, where they gradually broke down and helped improve the poor soil. We also compost organic waste from the home and return it to the garden,’ Charlotte adds.
‘We’ve planted flowers and herbs including verbena, Russian sage, lavender, California poppies, baby’s breath and yarrow, alongside our food garden. Our hope is that the soil and the life it supports will continue to improve while we’re here, and that this will remain long after the cabin moves.’
