Location: Wuhan, China

Design Team: Wiki World

Area: 20 m²

Year: 2026

Photography: Xhot

Design Features: Wiki World has built a 20 m² modular timber cabin in a wooded setting in Wuhan, China. Its vivid red shell, circular portholes and compact interior make the submarine reference more than a name. The cabin acts as a viewing device: familiar trees shift in scale between the low threshold, round openings and broad picture window.

A glulam structure underpins the cabin. Its components and custom joints were digitally designed and prefabricated before arriving on site. The body is raised above the woodland floor, leaving the surrounding trees and bamboo in place. Against the green setting, the red volume remains deliberately visible, while its small footprint and assembly strategy limit the extent of ground intervention.

The interior does not divide 20 m² into a conventional sequence of rooms. A large window anchors the living area; a ladder leads to a sleeping loft, stacking activity and rest within a single compact section. Portholes offer close, private views into the trees, while a skylight above the bed turns the gaze upward. Each opening changes the way the same woodland is experienced.

The project finds character in contrast rather than formal complexity. Outside, it reads as an unmistakable red object; inside, the warmth and grain of timber slow the pace. The picture window spreads the forest across the room, while a porthole edits it to a fragment of branches. Prefabricated construction, an elevated base and the loft arrangement work together to make a dense interior feel playful and precise.

The studio invokes the adventurous spirit of the film Fitzcarraldo in its account of the project. More compelling in the built space is how a very small dwelling rearranges the relationship between body and landscape: from the woodland to the red shell, and from the ladder to the bed, the forest keeps changing scale within the frame.

Design Team: Wiki World focuses on modular timber cabins, exploring the relationship between digital design, prefabricated construction and natural settings. The practice treats the cabin as an adaptable spatial system rather than a fixed image. Here, the glulam components, custom joints and compact plan were developed together, allowing construction to shape the experience of the room. ArchDaily credits Mu Wei, Feng Zhaoxian, Wu Baorong, He Wen, Xu Xiaodong, Liao Xiaotian, Wang Yuanying and Chen Liang as lead architects.