The Cowboy is certainly a likable personality so it is no surprise that we find it rubbing shoulders with fellow members of the 2009 Canadian Architect Annual Awards of Excellence .  Congratulations to D’Arcy Jones Design and their meticulous attention to detail that earned them the prestigious Award of Merit for everybody’s small scale favorite, the Cowboy.  So it’s now official when you escape to the Cowboy for a weekend you are indeed spending your time in very esteemed company.  Click through for more details on the award and the renderings D’Arcy submitted for the competition.  (more…)

Technorati Tags:   awards, Build a Cabin, Cabin Kits, Happiness, prefab cabins, small cabin plans, small cabins

At Form & Forest we spend a lot of time thinking of ways and means to make prefab architecture more accessible. It looks like Lego has us beat by a long shot with news that they are introducing two Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces to their architectural lineup. The Guggenheim model has been available since May 15 and none other than Fallingwater itself will be available sometime in July. So there you have it you’ll be able to build Fallingwater on your coffee table for $45 or so. Not so good for living in, but ideal for looking at, and perhaps the perfect excuse to play with Lego under the guise of serious architectural study. So if you want to build a prefab but are still waiting for the perfect lot to come available or the local authorities to approve your plans you can satisfy your immediate needs with Lego. Perhaps a series of Form & Forest Lego kits will be available in the future…. Lego are you listening?

Click through to see the kits. (more…)

Technorati Tags:   architecture, Lego, prefab

There are exactly 66 days left until the end of winter .

You have lot of snow and a lot of time left to build a snow fort . If you are at the cabin with nothing to do, looking out the window at all that unadulterated whiteness, its time to grab a shovel and get busy.

A quinzhee is a shelter made by hollowing out a pile of settled snow. This is in contrast to an igloo, which is made from blocks of snow.

If snow forts were houses, Igloos would be the large ornate mansions and Quinzhees would be efficient simple bungalows.

We’re going to show you how to build a snow fort equivalent of the simple, modern snow bungalow.
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Technorati Tags:   DIY, snow fort

Approached with proper planning, budgeting and design selection, building a new cabin can be a rewarding undertaking. Your cabin will form the base for all sorts of great experiences and memories. The construction of the cabin itself is no exception. Building a prefab cabin kit streamlines or eliminates several steps associated with traditional building techniques. The result is a quicker build time and reduced potential for error. You might be one of those confident and skilled individuals who takes on the construction yourself or you might work with a local contractor. Whatever the case the process from purchasing the right property to budgeting, planning and building should leave you with that sense of accomplishment you get whenever you do meaningful work.

Building a prefab cabin from start to finish is a 12 step process. Obviously there are many details within the 12 major steps and we will get into some of these over time but for now lets have a look at the process from start to finish. (more…)