We embraced the man-made nature of the site, thinking of it as a stage set or backdrop against which we could tell a story.  We invented two characters by personifying two sites opposite each other over the water and wrote a love story about a flower-loving goddess, Freya who builds a cabin to entice the object of her affections, Robin to row across the lake to her.

Freya modelled the cabin on her flower press; taking tree branches and pressing them tight together to create an enchanted forest ceiling, and balancing it up high on the tallest straightest stems she could find. When she saw Robin rowing away, Freya cried tears of gold and wrapped the cabin in them.

The fantasy design is echoed in the real construction. The cabin is make from CNC-cut plywood layers held together with glue and tension rods. The plywood is interspersed with clear acrylic sheets admitting light and forming the balustrade.  The structure is held up on lots of brass-clad metal “stems” planted into concrete foundations.

Preformed trays of Luvata’s Nordic Royal sheets were used as Freya’s golden tears to wrap the Cabin. The copper-aluminium sheets were chosen for their warm and lasting golden finish. They were perforated in a tear-like pattern and fixed so as to allow movement as the structure breathes with the weather.