Colorado Outward Bound Micro Cabins

Colorado Building Workshop
http://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/colorado-outward-bound-micro-cabins_o

SHARED BY

Symone Garvett

PROJECT NAME

Colorado Outward Bound Micro Cabins

LOCATION

Leadville, 

CO

PROJECT STATUS

Built

YEAR COMPLETED

2015

CLIENT/OWNER

Colorado Outward Bound School

TEAM

• Derek Ackley
• Sidney Aulds
• Becca Barenblat
• Brent Beicker
• Matthew Breen
• Andrew Brown
• Jeff D'Addario
• John Giddens
• Brandon Gossard
• Aaron Gray
• Dane Hardy
• Chad Holmes
• Casandra Huff
• Mark Hurni
• Timo Jyrinki
• Rachel Koleski
• Scott Lawrence
• Kate Lucas
• Nathan Moore
• Matt Ollmann
• Sam Palmer-Dwore
• Aleka Pappas
• Holly Paris
• Nathan Pepper
• Kit Piane
• Ken Roberts
• Louisa Sanford
• Rick Sommerfeld
• JD Signom
• Joe Stainbrook
• Brandon Sweeney
• Phil Stuen
• Amanda Tharp
• Jordan Vaughn
• Elliott Watenpaugh

CONSULTANTS

• Structural Engineer: Andy Paddock

AWARDS

• Residential Architect Design Award

  2016 
  Custom House Less Than 3,000 Square Feet: Citation

• AIA Colorado Young Architects Awards

  2016 
  Built Architecture - Under 20,000 SF

TYPE

Student Housing

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By ZACH MORTICE

2016 Residential Architect Design Awards
Custom House Less Than 3,000 Square Feet: Citation

The Colorado Outward Bound School commissioned the Colorado Building Workshop at the University of Colorado-Denver to work with 28 students to design and build year-round micro-cabins in Leadville, Colo., that would serve as hospitable waypoints for weary hikers. The seven structures are wonderfully simple: just a porch, a mudroom, and a bedroom with custom-built plywood furnishings. These cube-shaped volumes sit 10,000 feet above sea level in a frigid pine forest. The designs were inspired by the quinzee, a shelter Native Americans make by hollowing out piles of compacted snow—though for the cabins, the students opted to use structurally insulated panels. Each is perched on pilots grounded in concrete piers or existing boulders. Hot-rolled steel cladding serves as a low-maintenance rainscreen and contrasts with the cedar-clad porches and birch plywood finishes that glow orange when the cabins light up at dusk. These warm beacons call to campers to drop their packs and settle in for the night.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

FROM THE ARCHITECTS: 

Located on a steep hillside in a lodgepole pine forest, these cabins were designed as micro dormitories for the Colorado Outward Bound School. The cabins sit lightly on the landscape, directing views from private spaces towards trees, rock outcroppings and distant mountain views of the Mosquito Range. More public “community” views are directed into social spaces that develop from the organization of the cabins in relationship to one another. These community spaces are made up of front porches and the negative spaces between cabins.

To satisfy clients’ lodging and storage requirements, and to facilitate completion in three weeks of on-site construction, the cabins were conceived as two separate elements, a “box” and a “frame”. The “frame” acts as a storage device for the educators’ large gear (bikes, skis, kayaks, etc.) while simultaneously housing the cabin “box” and covered porches. The prefabricated cabin “box” rests in the frame under the protection of a “snow roof” designed to keep the winter snow load off the waterproofed roof below. Hot rolled steel provides a low maintenance rain screen for the box. This steel cladding and the vertical columns blend with the lodgepole forest minimizing the visual impact of the cabins. Structural taped glazing on the windows eliminates mullions and connects the occupants directly with natural views. 

The interior of the cabin is skinned in CNC’d birch plywood bringing warmth to the interior and evoking a connection with the trees surrounding the site. The plywood is specifically milled to accommodate desks, beds and storage for each user. The walls and CNC’d plywood were prefabricated in Denver, flat packed onto trucks and shipped to Leadville to shorten the on-site construction timeline.