Cabin Fever 2026

The second year of Cabin Fever in Česká Kamenice continued the theme of the relationship between light, space, and human experience and explored the role that presence, proximity, and mutual connection play in architecture. The dialogue with partners is based on the shared belief that the future of building lies in a responsible approach – in sensitive and conscious design that works with light and offers a meaningful alternative in today's stimuli-saturated world.

Concept, location, participants

For the 2026 edition, Hello Wood announced an international open call, inviting interested parties to submit proposals for mobile wooden cabins and installations responding to specific locations. Projects were to be based on the main principles of sustainability and mobility while offering quality contemporary architecture. An internal jury selected two cabins and two installations that were realized during the festival. Throughout the program, students and young professionals worked in five international teams.

The choice of Česká Kamenice as the festival's location stems from the shared ambition of the city, architects MJÖLK, and Hello Wood to explore how architecture and art can help places with a complicated past create a new identity and new reasons to visit and actively engage with them. The city and surrounding landscape offer specific conditions for this intention: here, significant natural qualities meet existing tourist trails and layered industrial history.

One of the key sites that the festival focused on during its first edition is Rabštejn – a former industrial area near Česká Kamenice, which also served as a forced labor camp during World War II. Today, the site has a completely different character. Surrounded by nature, it is traversed by a popular cycling route and serves as a destination for walkers, runners, and cyclists. The project aims to create a new relationship with the place without suppressing its complicated history. Through small architecture and artistic interventions, it invites visitors to stop, stay longer, explore the site, and reflect on it.

This process began during the first year of Cabin Fever in 2025. The 2026 edition returned to the same site not to continue its story but to add further architectural layers. Thus, Cabin Fever was not just an opportunity to create new cabins and installations but also to foster a living environment that gradually evolves through architecture and collaboration, changing the relationship with the place.

This year, the project expanded from Rabštejn directly into Česká Kamenice. Two new cabins were built in a wooded area approximately one kilometer from the summer school base. Three installations were placed in different parts of the city and its surroundings: one along the Kamenice River and two in Franz Preidel Park in the city center. By extending into the urban environment, Cabin Fever is more integrated into the everyday life of Česká Kamenice.

After this year's edition, there are a total of five cabins in Česká Kamenice and its surroundings. The long-term intention is to place them in final locations and use them for accommodation. Gradually, a network of small places for stay could emerge, encouraging visitors to remain in Česká Kamenice longer and explore the surrounding landscape. In the future, the project may bring new opportunities directly to the city and its inhabitants.

The significance of the project thus extends beyond the festival itself. Each edition leaves behind physical structures, new relationships, and additional opportunities for the city. Cabin Fever, utilizing the experiences of Hello Wood, demonstrates how a series of small architectural interventions can gradually connect history, landscape, and architecture, bringing visitors to lesser-known places and helping them find a new role without erasing their past.

“Cabin Fever is more than a summer school. Students, architects, and festival partners collaboratively design and build real, livable spaces that respond to the context in which they arise. The program evolves through collaboration, a responsible approach, and a close relationship with nature.”
— András Huszár, CEO Hello Wood

For the second year, Cabin Fever continues in collaboration with VELUX as the main partner of the festival. VELUX brings over eighty years of international experience and 36 years in the Czech market to the project. It shares the aim with the festival to develop responsible architecture and healthier indoor environments, providing the upcoming generation of architects with the opportunity to learn firsthand how daylight, fresh air, and responsible design influence the quality of living environments.

“The most valuable experience in architecture is gained when you can verify the design at a 1:1 scale. Cabin Fever gives young architects the chance to directly experience how daylight, natural elements, or material choices affect space and, above all, how people feel in it. The ability to observe, experiment, and validate things in practice, in our view, is the way to design better buildings that truly emerge from people's needs.”
– Marek Petrík, architect, VELUX

Another significant partner this year is NOVATOP, which provided visible CLT components for the cabins Joint and Three Rooms. These elements form their load-bearing structure and also define the character of the interiors with visible wood. The involvement of a Czech manufacturer of CLT structures demonstrated how collaboration with material suppliers can directly engage in architectural experimentation and allow students and young professionals to practically try working with CLT during real construction.

CABINS

Joint is a cabin created by connecting two distinct architectural parts – a technical module and a residential module. Both halves function together as one living entity, whose spatial character derives precisely from their mutual relationship. Contrasting geometries, surfaces, and functions work with themes of closeness, connection, and continuity.

The realization of Joint is conceived as an educational process, during which participants become acquainted with the basic principles of wooden structures, modular construction, and efficient building practices, as well as how structural solutions influence spatial experience and the atmosphere of architecture.

Design: Zeynep Kuheylan, Ozan Sen, Busra Balaban
Workshop leaders: Zeynep Kuheylan, Busra Balaban

Builders: Aaron Horwood, Adam Freisinger, Agata Bosiacka-Brzozowska, Anna Mixová, Arlo Heynes, Barbora Ptáčková, Daria Polishchuk, Jenna Cronin, Karel Janssen, Karla Lalaleo Portero, Kristína Hanesová, Anna Maršálková, Martín Javier Verdesoto Ortiz, Mathilde Catsamba, Vendula Zíková, Veronika Richterová

THREE ROOMS / Tři pokoje

Three Rooms are not designed as a definitively closed cabin but as a flexible system of three spaces, whose arrangement can change over time. Instead of a house as a single whole, the cabin consists of three interconnected spaces that differ in their level of closure, technical equipment, and connection to the surroundings.

The first room forms a compact technological core concentrating spaces for sleeping, technical facilities, and infrastructure. The second is a freer open space that can serve for living, working, or dining. The third functions as a climatic intermediary – a space reminiscent of a greenhouse that mediates the transition between the interior and the landscape, integrating the transformations of time and seasons into architecture.

Three Rooms allow various configurations, from a compact unit to an expanded system. The house is thus not understood as a fixed whole but as a simple and flexible structure that can adapt to changing lifestyles and the surrounding landscape. The project is intended to continue developing even after the festival's conclusion – by adding further units, it can change its arrangement and offer new possibilities for communal use.

Design: IR arquitectura - Luciano Intile, Enrico Cavagliá, Francisci Escapil, Lucia Pistolesi, Gonzalo Coquet
Workshop leaders: Rae Woods, Simon Kőszegi

Builders: Amanda Puerto-Lichtenberg, Bianca Alexandru, Carlo Sosa Garcia, Fanni Bodzsar, Fenyvesi Ábel, Heidi Siren, Igor Illanitz, Jan Ptáček, Júlia Pavlovits, Katie Le, Laura Salminen, Michal Procházka, Nora Petersen, Oi Yan Lai, Roland Pazsák, Tomáš Kadaňka, Virág Szabó

FOREST BATHING / Lesní lázně

Forest Bathing is a modular wooden structure designed for rest and a more intense perception of nature. It radiates around the existing tree, creating a space for stopping and relaxing.

Sloped wooden surfaces allow one to comfortably lean or lie down and observe the surrounding landscape or the crown of the tree. The structure is made entirely of wood, combining simplicity with minimal impact on the natural environment.

Design: Sol Macchiavello, Valentina Frana, Sol Meyer, Carlos Lora
Workshop leaders: Sol Macchiavello, Valentina Frana

Builders: Alejandro Sebastian Moreno Escudero, Aleksandra Musiał, César Augusto Coronel Romero, Faheem Kathawala, Karolina Kowara, Kristýna Matýsková, Marcos Israel Fiallos López, Maya Vilciu, Michelle Amba, Terry Siu, Winson Yeung

CHRY-SAIL-IS

Chry-sail-is is made from wood and repurposed boat sails and plays with the relationship between the load-bearing structure and the resulting form. It resembles a peculiar vessel that no longer belongs to the sea, but to the landscape, the wind, and the people passing through it. The used sails suspended in a sturdy wooden structure respond to air currents, moving and creating a constant tension between stability and transformation.

Chry-sail-is shows how discarded materials can gain new forms and meanings. The project also responds to the history of the place associated with the industrial textile production and wartime aviation. It connects stories of production, movement, and transformation, transferring traces of the past into new forms.

Design: Claire Leffler, Aiden McGorry, Elizabeth Panic, Curran Thompson, Kaden Hilinski
Workshop leaders: Claire Leffler, Aiden McGorry, Elizabeth Panic, Curran Thompson, Kaden Hilinski

Builders: Koen Visser, Maria Vazquez Serra, Molly Sloane, Patricia Gregory, Pierre Allary

LIFE IS A THEATRE / Život je divadlo

Life is a Theatre is a community space in the urban park created from leftover wood from previous editions of Cabin Fever using traditional carpentry laminated joints.

The design is based on the principle of zero waste and gives previously used materials a new function. In the garden by the church, a place has been created for gatherings, theatrical performances, and other community events.

The flexible construction can function both as an informal public stage and as a space for everyday meetings of locals. The project thus connects community use with the principles of circular design and traditional craftsmanship.

Design: Ádám Tóth – Malom Projekt
Workshop leaders: Ádám Tóth – Malom Projekt

Builders: Adam Schwarz, Alex Leonel Erazo Torres, Eliska Fuentes Pérez, Flóra Kis, Gabriel Eccles, Lily Flashman, Márton Vári, Martyna Kotulek, Melis Canlı, Nahomy Anahi Armas Robalino, Naomi Ren, Nikoleta Vargova, Tamara Tóth, Tay Allen, Whitney Owen

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Organizer: Hello Wood, www.hellowood.com 
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Main sponsor: VELUX, www.velux.cz 
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Workshop participants:
Hello Wood board: András Huszár, Dávid Ráday, Krisztián Tóth
Project leader: Gréta Marcsinyi
Project architect: Vencel Huiber
Workshop team: Domonkos István Langer, András Apró
Sound technology and event support: Barna Berta
CLT specialist: Radek Oslizlo
Purchasing manager: Zsolt Hodgyai
Electrical safety: Norbert Verpulácz
Content and media: Dávid Nagy, Diána Trencsényi
Kitchen: Zsolt Dunszt, Ildikó Dunsztné Pataki, Orsolya Pintye
Graphic design: Bercel Hegyessy

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Hello Wood is a multi-award-winning architectural studio specializing in the design, construction, and development of recreational facilities, larger-scale buildings, and community-focused installations. It has over 16 years of experience and primarily works with cross-laminated timber (CLT) and other sustainable materials. It creates architecture that brings joy and deserves attention. HELLO WOOD emerged in 2010 as a summer architectural camp and has gradually developed into an international studio that connects design and realization of projects in various locations around the world, as well as an educational platform based on the principles of learning through practice, community, and sustainable architecture made from CLT.

As a proud main sponsor of the Cabin Fever summer school, VELUX supports a new generation of architects and designers who strive for a more sustainable and light-filled future. With over 80 years of experience, VELUX harnesses the power of daylight and fresh air to create healthier indoor environments. The company's philosophy is deeply rooted in respect for both people and the planet. VELUX solutions not only fill our living spaces with natural light but also reduce energy consumption, improve indoor climate quality, and strengthen our connection with nature.
Through its partnership with Cabin Fever, VELUX actively promotes creativity and progressive design. This collaboration reflects a shared belief that the future must be shaped responsibly – with ease, mutual care, and meaningful intent.