A Pavilion of Solid Cork Built for Quiet, in Southern Portugal

An Antwerp design studio has built a pavilion with walls made of solid cork, and it is meant for sitting still. Corkinho, the studio, installed the structure in the grounds of Casa No Tempo, a holiday villa in southern Portugal, Dezeen reported on 2 November 2026.

The building is called a still room. It is a space for quiet, inward activities such as reading, yoga, tea ceremonies and meditation. Its walls are blocks of solid cork stacked like bricks and held in place with metal rods threaded through milled channels. A timber roof sits on top, and its weight presses down on the cork. The floor is a timber deck laid over removable concrete blocks.

Lead designer Cédric Etienne devised the structure to be fully demountable, meaning it can be taken apart and moved. He worked on the design with architect and master carpenter Gonçalo Madeira Marrote of Madeiguincho.

Corkinho first tried the still room idea in 2020, when it moved its office into the former Noorderpershuis power station in Antwerp. The Casa No Tempo version came about when Etienne pitched it to João Rodrigues and his company, Silent Living.

Casa No Tempo is a former farmhouse that Manuel Aires Mateus converted into a holiday home in 2014 for Rodrigues. The villa has four suites, according to Metalocus. Silent Living owns the property and has five properties in total, all designed by Aires Mateus. Corkinho's website places the villa about 1.5 hours from Lisbon and 20 minutes from the town of Montemor-o-Novo.

Villa guests can use the still room. It can also host planned programmes, including four-day silent retreats. Corkinho's site also lists day retreats and wellbeing gatherings. The company describes the Casa No Tempo installation as a remote version of its Still Room.

The setting is the cork country of Alentejo, the region where Corkinho gets its raw material. The company says its bark comes from Alcacer do Sal, a town in the region, and that its products are designed in Belgium and made in Portugal. Its main range is scent diffusers and incense holders made from cork bark leftovers, which are slightly burnt before they are pressed.

For guests, the appeal is simple: a place to put the phone down and do one thing slowly. For the builders, the pavilion is also a lesson in how much can be done without glue. Every piece can be lifted out, carried away and set up again somewhere else.