Product name: Cabanas

Brand: Xylotek - Advanced Timber Specialists

Designers: Mamou-Mani Architects & Xylotek Studio

A collaboration between Mamou-Mani Architects, Xylotek Studio, and Format Engineers gave rise to the innovative Cabana break-out pavilions.

The project's core challenge was to harmonize privacy and inspiration with a sustainable approach. The Cabana break-out pavilions achieve this through creating partitioning and seating that connect the user with nature through both the bio-inspired form and the material qualities. The structure also offers a sense of privacy and human-scale in the new Paris headquarters of Orange Telecoms. 

Using steam-bend ash lamellas enabled the crafting of a fractal timber skin that enables light to pass through the structure while minimizing resource use and waste. Inspired by the organic forms of cactus fibers, the creative use of steam-bending timber elements has resulted in sinuous rib patterns. These were achieved through meticulous digital and physical prototyping undertaken at Xylotek’s UK-based research workshop.