Cabin Fever is an international summer school and festival launched by the Hungarian architecture studio HELLO WOOD, known for its design-build approach and community-focused, sustainable projects. Since its founding in 2010, HELLO WOOD has become a global platform merging hands-on education with socially engaged architecture.
The second edition explored how light and space shape human experience – placing presence, intimacy, and connection at the center of architecture. This dialogue with sponsors reflects a shared conviction: that the future of building lies in responsibility – in creating spaces with care, with awareness, and with light – offering meaningful alternatives in an overstimulated world.
2026 Concept, Location, Participants
For the 2026 edition, HELLO WOOD launched an international open call, inviting applicants to submit proposals for transportable timber cabins and site-specific installations. The submitted projects were expected to respond to key principles of sustainability, mobility, architectural quality and contemporary design. Following the online application process, an internal jury reviewed the proposals and selected two cabin designs and two installation concepts to be realised during the festival. Throughout the programme, students and young professionals worked in five international teams.
The choice of Česká Kamenice as the festival’s was rooted in a shared ambition between the municipality, MJÖLK architects and HELLO WOOD to explore how architecture and art can help places with a complex past develop new identities and new reasons for people to visit and engage with them. The town and its surrounding landscape offered a particularly meaningful context: a place where rich natural qualities, existing tourism routes and a layered industrial history come together.
One of the key sites identified in the first year of the festival was Rabštejn, a former industrial area near the town that also served as a forced labour camp during the Second World War. Today, the site has a very different character: surrounded by nature and crossed by a popular cycling route, it has become a destination for walking, running and cycling. The project seeked to create a new relationship with the site without erasing its difficult history – using small-scale architecture and art to encourage people to stop, stay, discover and reflect.
While this approach was already set in motion during the first edition of Cabin Fever in 2025, the 2026 programme did not simply return to the same location to repeat the experience; it continued the story of the site: adding new architectural layers. Cabin Fever 2026 was not only about creating new cabins and installations, but also about building a living, evolving environment where architecture, collective work and place-making could meet.
This year, the project also expanded beyond Rabštejn and into the town itself. Two new cabins were built in a forested area approximately one kilometre from the Summer School’s camp, while three installations were placed in different settings: one along the Kamenice River and two in Franze Preidla Park in the town centre. By extending the project into the urban fabric, Cabin Fever has become more visible and more closely connected to the everyday life of Česká Kamenice.
With this year’s additions, five cabins have now been created in the area. The long-term vision is to place them at their final locations and operate them as accommodation, creating a network of small destinations that could encourage visitors to stay longer, explore the landscape and discover the wider region. In the future, this network could also support local employment and new tourism opportunities.
The value of the project therefore grows beyond the festival itself. Each year leaves behind physical structures, new relationships and new possibilities for the town. Drawing on HELLO WOOD’s experience Cabin Fever demonstrates how a series of small-scale architectural interventions can gradually connect history, landscape, architecture and tourism – helping places with a complex past become meaningful destinations for the future.
“Cabin Fever is more than a summer school: it is a shared design-build process where students, architects, partners and the local context come together to create real, inhabitable spaces. In Česká Kamenice, the programme continues to grow through collaboration, sustainability and a deeper connection to nature.” — András Huszár, CEO of HELLO WOOD
For the second consecutive year, VELUX proudly returned as the main sponsor of the Cabin Fever festival, continuing a successful and deeply aligned partnership established in 2025. Backed by more than eight decades of global expertise and 36 years of local presence, the company shared the festival's vision of advancing sustainable architecture and healthier indoor environments. Together, they empower the next generation of architects to discover how daylight, fresh air, and responsible design can shape better living spaces through practical, hands-on experience.
“The most valuable lessons in architecture happen when ideas are tested at full scale. Cabin Fever gives young designers the opportunity to experience how natural elements and thoughtful material choices influence space – not as abstract concepts, but as real qualities that shape how people live and feel. This hands-on process reflects the way we believe better buildings should be designed: through observation, experimentation and a deep understanding of human needs." – Adrienn Balázs architect, VELUX
As another key sponsor, NOVATOP supplied the exposed CLT elements for the Joint and Three Rooms cabins, giving both projects their structural framework and visible timber character. The partnership connected the summer school with the regional timber industry and showed how material suppliers can contribute directly to architectural experimentation. For NOVATOP, the collaboration was an opportunity to support a project where students and professionals could work with CLT in a real educational construction setting.
CABINS
JOINT
Joint is a cabin formed through the juxtaposition of two distinct architectural bodies: a utilitarian and a living module. Once joined, the two halves operate as a single inhabitable system, and the project’s spatial identity emerges from this coexistence. Their contrasting geometries, surfaces, and functions negotiate proximity, connection, and continuity. The making of Joint is also conceived as a pedagogical framework within the context of HELLO WOOD, introducing participants to core principles of timber construction, modular assembly, optimized building processes, and the ways in which tectonic decisions shape spatial experience and atmospheric quality.
Designers: 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, Maršálková Anna, Martín Javier Verdesoto Ortiz, Mathilde Catsamba, Vendula Zíková, Veronika Richterová
Three Rooms
3 ROOMS is conceived not as a finished cabin, but as a flexible system of three rooms that can be reorganized over time, shifting from the idea of the house as a single object to a sequence of spaces with different degrees of definition, technology, and environmental control. The first room is a compact, high-technology core concentrating sleeping areas, services, and infrastructure; the second is a more indeterminate, clear-span space that can become living, working, or dining area; and the third functions as a climatic buffer, an intermediate greenhouse-like zone mediating between interior and landscape and introducing time and seasons as architectural variables. Together, these three rooms allow multiple configurations, from compact unit to expanded system, proposing architecture not as a fixed domestic image but as a minimal, adaptable infrastructure for inhabiting a changing landscape. The project is designed to continue evolving after the festival, enabling future aggregations, reconfigurations, and new collective uses as additional units are added over time.
Designers: 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
INSTALLATIONS
Forest Bathing
Forest Bathing is a modular timber structure designed to foster relaxation and a deeper connection with nature. Arranged around an existing tree, its radial geometry creates a shared space for contemplation and rest. The inclined wooden surfaces allow visitors to recline comfortably while observing the surrounding landscape and tree canopy. Built entirely from wood, the project combines sustainability, simplicity, and minimal impact on the natural environment.
Designers: 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
Constructed from timber and repurposed sailboat sails, Chry-sail-is explores the relationship between scaffolding and form, creating a strange vessel that no longer belongs to the sea but to the landscape, the wind, and the people who move through it. Suspended within a rigid wooden framework, the reused canvas breathes, shifts, and holds constant tension between permanence and change. Chry-sail-is explores what happens when forgotten materials are allowed to molt and become something new. Rooted in a site shaped by industrial textile production and wartime aviation, the project weaves together histories of making, movement, and transformation, allowing discarded materials to carry old stories into new forms.
Designers: 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, Molly Sloane, Patricia Gregory, Pierre Allary
Life Is A Theatre
Life is a Theatre is a sustainable community space in the city park, built using traditional half-lap
joinery and leftover timber from the Cabin Fever program series. Designed with a zero-waste approach, it repurposes reclaimed materials into an inviting gathering spot that can host theatrical performances as well as various other community events at the garden of the church.
The flexible structure serves as both an informal public stage and a social hub for local connection. Ultimately, the project brings people together while demonstrating the possibilities of circular design and traditional craftsmanship.
Team:
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 technician & Event support: Barna Berta
CLT Specialist: Radek Oslizlo
Procurement manager: Zsolt Hodgyai
Content: Dávid Nagy
Press: Diána Trencsényi
Kitchen: Zsolt Dunszt, Ildikó Dunsztné Pataki, Orsolya Pintye
Graphic design: Bercel Hegyessy
Designer: Ádám Tóth – Malom Projekt
Workshop leader: Ádám Tóth – Malom Projekt
Main sponsor: VELUX
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
Key sponsors: HILTI, NOVATOP
Sponsors: HolzTeam, BURN. Mag-Log Transport, Rothoblaas, Symbol, Stabil Építő Kft., Talajcsavarozó Kft
Special sponsor: Municipality of Česká Kamenice
Organizer: HELLO WOOD
Photographer: BoysPlayNice, Harvey Cooper, Hodaya Hoter-Ishay
