Shelters in Birtvisi Canyon

Requirements

Create a set of small guest houses (shelters).

Every shelter should house 3-5 people and be as small and simple as possible.

No electricity, no amenities required.

The shelters will be used by tourists visiting some wild area of the country. Find the wild area you like and fit the shelters into it.

Location

Birtvisi Canyon, located 30 km to the south-west of Georgia’s capital, is a national park famous for its medieval fortress and beautiful mountain sights. There is a small wooded opening after the entrance to the canyon, where visitors like to set up camps and do some rock climbing. Tourists love this place and it's rarely empty, especially on weekends. After visiting it a few times, I distinctly observed the need for a few simple shelters.

Vision

It is quite hard to get to the canyon even on foot. So each element of the building structure should be of manageable size and weight as it will be delivered either on foot or by a donkey. Stone is available locally in small quantities. That's why I have chosen lightweight dimensional lumber as the main material.

The magic created by the surrounding rocks and my choice of materials made me think of japanese theme for its organic blend with nature and exquisite use of woodwork. It also has an interesting resemblance with traditional georgian architecture.

The key feature of the shelters is curved roofs. The roof consists of long curved beams (about 7 m long) and straight beams across them. There are two ways to construct these long beams:

As a whole element made of laminated timber;

As a sequence of short straight boards.

Considering the difficulties with delivery of long heavy timbers to the site, I paid particular attention to the details of implementation of the second option to make sure the roof is structurally sound and simple to build.

Software used: AutoCad, Revit, Blender, Photoshop