Hey guys, Jenna here.
Welcome back to my channel where I show you tours of unique spaces and today's
video tour is out of this world because it has the best bedroom for stargazing
in California. Not only that,
but the space does a great job of combining luxury,
the great outdoors and a taste of an off-grid lifestyle.
And when the owner isn't using it, you can even rent it for the night.
So let's take a tour,
but first I'd like to thank nomad internet for sponsoring this video.
Nomad is the only truly unlimited internet you can use in rural areas.
And while on the road stay connected wherever you are without any extra fees
to find out, more, check out the link in the description.
Hi, my name is Malek Alqadi.
I am the principal of creation studio and we are in the folly
cabin in Joshua tree, California.
So I went to school for architecture and design.
My thesis was focused on sustainability,
creating cohesion between existing spaces and new ones and
creating something out of existing infrastructure.
So cohesion, integration of pragmatic and contextual relevancy.
So this cabin's actually the outcome of my thesis that I did in my fifth
year of schooling in architecture.
The name folly actually comes from in Europe.
They have these extravagant properties with tons of acreage and they're
called Follies and they are buildings that don't have a purpose
and people don't necessarily live in them.
They're ornamental buildings and gardens.
Those types of structures always fascinated me because I was like, well,
what if we could go somewhere where there is a national park and a lot of
acreage. And it happens to be just as beautiful in its own way.
And we find something that has history like a homestead and take that
existing infrastructure and then give it purpose.
So the cabin is completely off grid. We have solar power, gray water system,
Blackwater system, and it's completely disconnected on all fronts,
all the usable spaces, right around a thousand square feet.
It sleeps six people.
You could have two people that sleep in the indoor loft.
Two people sleeping in the outdoor loft or stargazing suite that is open air.
And then two people that can sleep on the sofa in the common area as a pullout
bed.
The inspiration of the design is actually the existing cabin that was here and
the surrounding property. The views were a big play on, you know,
where the windows were going to be.
How do I connect the guests that come and stay with the outdoors while still
being inside?
Also budget was a big thing because it may look like a big
out-of-pocket expense, but really strategically thinking about, you know,
what window sizes make sense, how to plug them in,
in the right spot and how to pull it off,
because it was all out of pocket experiencing different ways to
reuse the materials that we had, keeping it as local as possible.
It's not easy getting things delivered out in the middle of nowhere.
So it has to be really strategically thought out and thinking about the
materials themselves and how they're inspired by the neutral surroundings of the
desert landscape. You know,
and finding that in four by eight sheets of plywood in the right color plywood
and the right grain,
the stargazing suite is definitely a big highlight in this whole cabin.
It's the end of the experience or that circulation that I've been talking about
throughout the cabin, as you move from outdoors, indoors outside,
and being able to be up in that stargazing and stargaze at night and being able
to experience the Milky way and having that bioethanol fire players
to keep you warm at night. All of those things make it very unique,
stay to sleep at night or even, you know,
to just cuddle up for a few hours and then come back indoors.
That's definitely something that most people enjoy when they do come and sit at
the counter.
And this is the folly cabin. Let's take a look inside.
So this is the main space. You have the living room on this side,
which is on the North end, the dining eating area,
and then the back wall as the kitchen, as you can see,
it's split into two areas just to maximize the amount of space and
minimize the amount of circulation space needed.
And so you could see on this side, you have your cooktop sink,
garbage disposal drawer space with utensils. And then on this end,
you can see, this is the ladder that takes you up to the bedroom upstairs.
The loft kind of came to life because we accentuated the roof line and we have
this volume that allowed for a sleeping area that housed a queen bed.
It was a great way to use that space.
That was very limited just due to the fact that we were on this existing
footprint with this 1954 concrete slab.
And then even the dividers,
there were just simple two by eight wood dividers creates a divider without
having a literal wall in the space that may make it feel smaller.
And then it has a refrigerator highlighting the coffee station and just
more upper cabinets storage.
This is the sofa that holds out into a full sleeping area.
Some people are a bit hesitant about climbing the ladders,
or if you have kids or you want it to just enjoy the views down here,
you can pull this out and it folds out on both ends here and here.
And then there's also storage, which is great.
We try to maximize as much storage. So blankets pillows,
all that sort of stuff goes in here, but doubles as a great reading area,
Wanted to have a TV in here,
but didn't want it to be the center and the focal point of the space.
So it's off to the side and it's in a way that you don't see it when you come in
from the front door, what you really focus on are the views.
And if you notice there's no artwork in here because when I was designing,
it was really focusing on, you know,
mother nature and the outside landscape as being as the artwork and really just
experiencing the outdoors. And that's all that mattered.
As you manuever through the cabin and you circulate to the outdoors,
you have your toilet room, water closet, which acts as a powder room.
And that was a really intentional way of splitting the bathroom up.
The toilet wanted to, again,
it was all about waste and having the day functions and, you know,
dual flush options and, uh,
being able to have a heated toilet, you know, people think off-grid, they think,
Oh, there's not even a toilet to be used. There's no water.
It's going to be a nightmare. Or, you know, utilizing this design in this cabin,
it was like an icebreaker for people to come and stay for the weekend and
understand what off-grid living is like and not compromising on modern day
amenities. And the toilet was another play up on that, which was, you know,
you're in an awkward cabin, but you still have a heated, heated seat toilet. Um,
you have complete dual flush functions. What
you notice on this wall is, you know,
I talk a lot about disconnecting and getting away from all of it,
but also wanted it to be an educational experience for people to understand how
much energy the cabin is producing and how much they're consuming when they're
staying here,
controls everything that's in the cabin and
you don't have to use it,
but it's a great way to mess around with internal functions of
the folly itself. So this is the, the shower.
Again,
wanted to design something that was experience-based and having a wet room
shower in a small cabin with a view makes it a much more exciting to take one.
It was a great way to plug in, you know,
a shower head had an amazing view out and then pulling a Boulder
in as a shower bench was an exciting way to be able to bring the
outdoors in while experiencing the outside.
And now we'll go to the outside. I'll show you around the exterior of the cabin.
As you can see,
the cabin is a pretty small footprint because it's actually on the existing
concrete slab from 1954.
So the entire footprint is exactly how it was 70 years ago.
And the whole point of it was to not add more footprint to the property,
but to work with what we already had.
You can see the smaller windows on the South facing side to minimize the
amount of direct sunlight that will go into the cabin in regards to choosing the
different materials.
A big thing for me was to pay tribute again to that homestead concept
and what rustic means and how to whole,
what rustic meant to me personally,
as I was designing it and creating something that aged with time.
So this cabin is actually like space silver when we first installed
it. And the weathering of the steel actually came over time.
So every month you came to visit the cabin, it would be a different color,
different shape. You can see the water on the facade.
You can see the way the wind was blowing the water on this side.
And this idea of weathering integrated it more into the landscape instead of
making it feel like it was added on.
And that was really important in regards to paying tribute to what a rustic
homestead cabin was back in the 1950s,
to what it is now in the 2020s.
It's important to create space between both forms and
that was framing the views between the main cabin and then the stargazing suite.
And that's what this deck does. It's 15 feet in width.
And so that provides a bit of relief allowing for a small cactus
garden and outdoor shower,
a way to the fire pit and a way to also go to the outdoor bedroom,
which is upstairs.
As you can see the concealed gutters, there was really important to hide, uh,
to keep the form as clean as possible, almost like a monopoly house.
And you play a monopoly board game.
You always have those little greenhouses as kids,
or even as adults when you play with them.
And gutters usually are tacked on as an afterthought and they're not very
attractive.
And so the goal was to do concealed gutters throughout on either end of the roof
and having them bleed out to the bottom of the buildings and the outdoor
space between the solar tree, which, you know,
the idea of it being kind of our utility company,
because this cabin is completely off grid and having the star gazing suite to my
right, it allowed for a, to be able to hang out,
have hammocks outdoor space again, to be able to connect with the outdoors.
The idea of taking the panels off the roof keeps the architecture really clean
back to that like clean form that I was talking about and also having the
solar panels without being on top of the roof,
actually allows for airflow to go under the panels and above them.
And it keeps the panels cooler,
which makes them more productive and more efficient.
Being able to think about the different systems of where we're doing,
what are we doing with waste? What are we doing with water?
All of those different elements culminate in making this cabin an off-grid
cabin. This was a first project for my firm,
but I started it wasn't just a task.
It was something that I truly believed in and really wanted to tackle.
And it was me starting my own practice.
And then I've also just been working on a ton of different projects in the
Hamptons. I've been working on an off-grid farm and exploring that in Cody,
Wyoming,
I've been working with Kanye West on building his ranch out and the acreage he
has out in toady.
And so there's a lot of different layers to the work and the projects that we
tackle from small scale to large scale.
Hope you guys enjoy this week's video,
make sure to like share and subscribe and check back next Friday for an all new
tour.