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Hospitality
Northline Retreat
Hospitality
/
Nagano, Japan
/
2024
Overview
A project shaped by its context.
Guest cabins set into the slope above the valley.
Northline Retreat is a cluster of six guest cabins and a shared lodge on a forested slope near Hakuba. Each cabin is placed to protect existing trees and to frame one specific view of the northern Alps. The buildings sit lightly on steel piers, leaving the forest floor undisturbed, and use charred larch cladding that blends into the woodland.
Location
Nagano, Japan
Year
2024
Type
Hospitality
Area
640 m² across seven buildings
Scope
Architecture, interiors, landscape
Collaborators
Hakuba Timber Co., Studio Mori Lighting
The brief
What the project needed
The operators wanted a retreat that guests would remember for its quiet, not its scale. Planning rules limited building height, and the site held mature larch and beech that the client wanted to protect.
Each cabin needed to work year-round, from deep winter snow to humid summers, with minimal maintenance.
Design approach
How we responded
We surveyed every tree on the site and placed the cabins in the gaps between them. Large single panes face the view, while the sides facing other cabins stay closed for privacy.
Raised floors on slender piers keep snow and moisture away from the timber and let the forest floor continue beneath the buildings. Inside, a restrained palette of larch, linen and clay plaster keeps the focus on the landscape.
Project gallery
Light, material and the life within.
Cabins set among the larch forest.
Living area framing the treeline.
Pathway between the guest cabins.
Shared lodge with a double-height volume.
