Norwegian Architecture Studio Builds a Cabin From Whole Spruce Trees — Roots and All

An architecture studio in Norway has completed a cabin framed by 18 whole spruce trees — trunks, branches and root systems intact — on a protected rocky headland along the country's Atlantic coast.

Helen & Hard, the Stavanger-based practice behind the project, spent twelve years sketching and designing Cabin Sande before it was finished on the site at Randaberg, Norway, according to the studio's own social media posts Facebook. The 112-square-metre retreat sits on the footprint of a 1970s cabin, and planning restrictions on the protected headland required the replacement building to match the original's size and height Dezeen.

The structural columns are the cabin's defining feature. Each spruce was excavated with its roots intact, air-dried for eight months, then digitally scanned so robotic milling could cut bespoke joints while preserving the tree's organic shape. The 18 columns fan outward from the cabin, branching like a forest canopy above the rooms. Helen & Hard told Dezeen the design was intended to evoke the experience of standing beneath a stand of trees.

The technique has deep roots in Norwegian craft. The structural system draws on traditional boatbuilding dating back to the Viking Age, when builders used the naturally curved joint between a tree trunk and its root to stiffen the ribs of wooden vessels. The same principle — a root-and-trunk junction that nature had already shaped into a strong angle — holds up Cabin Sande's roof.

The fan-shaped building opens towards the Atlantic Ocean with a 9.5-metre-wide window across the main living space. There are no mullions — the vertical bars that typically divide panes — interrupting the view. Helen & Hard set the cabin on a stone plinth built from rock found on site and topped it with a planted roof that follows the contours of the surrounding terrain, helping the low structure settle into the headland.

Cabin Sande is not a client commission. Helen & Hard built it as their own personal retreat, as reported by Wallpaper magazine in May 2026 Wallpaper, which described it as a cosy refuge from unpredictable coastal weather. The studio's practice, founded in 1996 in Stavanger, has produced several Norwegian cabins — including Hytte Hellestø, an 80-square-metre cabin on sandy dunes, and the Gudbrandslie Cabin, which uses prefabricated spruce elements to cut construction time in harsh climates helenhard.no.

What makes Cabin Sande unusual is the meeting of old and new in its bones. The idea of using a tree's root flare as a structural joint is a thousand years old. The method of finding that joint — laser-scanning an uprooted spruce and letting a robot cut the mating surfaces — is thoroughly contemporary. The result is a cabin that looks grown rather than built, its columns still carrying the forked, uneven shape of living trees.