Arthur's Cave

About this project

Miller Kendrick have completed the build of their competition winning entry for a of ‘pop-up hotel’ cabin located at Castell y Bere, Wales. The cabin, known as ‘Arthur’s Cave’, was one of eight winning entries for the Epic Retreats.

The project was part funded by the Welsh Government’s Tourism Product Innovation Fund. The cabin will be featured as part of Channel 4’s ‘Cabins in the Wild with Dick Strawbridge’ documentary series, with the first of four episodes due to air on Sunday 21st May. 

The design takes its inspiration from the ancient landscape of Wales but utilises modern construction techniques. The structure is a combination of CNC-cut birch plywood ribs and sheathing panels, which act together to form a composite structure. The structural ribs are comprised of either three or five individual sections of plywood, tightly fitted together using ‘jigsaw’ joints with a high degree of tolerance. As a single internal material, the plywood provides both structure, f inish, fixtures and fittings - including a plywood sink and bath. The faceted envelope is clad in locallysourced Welsh larch boards stained black, with sheep’s wool insulation part-filling the cavity. Wherever possible the project has sought to use locally sourced materials. The sheep’s wool insulation is from Ty-Mwar. The green larch cladding is from Esgair Forest who’s saw mill is adjacent to the site in neighbouring village of Machynlleth.

The cabin is heated via a small log burner, has hot and cold water, LED lighting powered via photovoltaics and a self composting WC.

Use of Timber

Here timber is used as structure, finish cladding and even for sanitary ware. Locally sourced green larch was used for the cladding whilst inside every surface is birch faced ply. By using the strength of birch faced ply and nailing directly into the end grain of the 24mm thick fins the overall wall buildup was minimised in thickness and the weight of the cabin reduced.