Alumni Kelsey Nilson (MArch 2015) and Deagan McDonald (MArch 2015) were recently awarded 1st place in the Iceland Trekking Cabins Competitionhosted by Bee Breeders with CDS NORD Property Developers.

“The structure is humble, directing focus outwards to the landscape,” says Nilson and McDonald of their submission titled Terra Firma. They proposed a three-roomed shelter distilled down to its basic functions, which incorporates gabion walls, a rainwater collection tank, photovoltaic cells, and translucent polycarbonate panels on a timber-framed roof.

From the Jury Commentary:

It is in this delicate balance between rigid structure and an untouched landscape that the project finds resonance. The play between manmade and natural heightens the visitors awareness of surrounding, allowing protection from the elements while still remaining fully engaged within the environment. In a landscape where the temporal patterns of hiking and camping are lauded for a leave no trace transience, the shelter challenges the perception that permanence and obstruction necessarily go hand-in-hand, developing an architectural language that both monumentalizes the act of camping and allows natural systems of the site — animals, hydrology, and fauna — to flow through uninterrupted.

The top three Iceland Trekking Cabin projects will be considered for construction by CDS NORD, with plans to build next year.

Nilson and McDonald are co-founders of ORIGINS — a small scale, multi-disciplinary design studio based in Toronto. Recently, the firm created a winning furniture entry into the IIDEX Canada's 2016 Woodshop Competition, and received honorable mention in the Sequoia Climbing Space Competition. In an interview with IIDEXCanada 2016, Nilson and McDonald spoke about the intersection functionality and aesthetics in design, and commented that “good design should be honest, humble, and useful above all else.”