Letters of Appreciation
Welcome to my 4th article in this ongoing series where each article is both a house feature and a sincere note of gratitude to the people who imagined it. Homes aren’t just structures, they are vessels for our stories, rituals, and sense of belonging. These articles celebrate the homes that teach us something about balance, intention, and the art of living well. Homes featured here are the reason I started Habitat Balance: the place where thoughtful design and mental well-being meet.
Below is my thank-you letter to the creator of this extraordinary cabin.
Out of respect for the architect as well as copyright, this article provides links to the original websites where you can see photos of this project and the other amazing projects the architect has accomplished. Any other project or company mentioned has links provided as well..
Dear Caspar,
I want to start by saying that I am sorry for the loss of your father.
I want to say thank you for turning that loss into something that gives others so much.
What you built is remarkable, but the story behind it is what truly stays with me.
The idea that a dream became a direction. That a voice from someone you loved, even after they were gone, pointed you back toward nature and that you listened. You didn’t just go for a walk in the woods and call it healing. You built something. You created a home that does what your father asked.
That is not just design. That is devotion.
It is a reminder, one I think about personally, that time with the people we love is not guaranteed. Build the cabin. Take the trip. Have the conversation. Make the thing together before the moment passes. Because you never know.
Thank you for reminding me of that. Thank you for reminding all of us.
I also want to say something as someone who draws houses and cabins as a hobby… who doodles floor plans and imagines small spaces just for the love of it. I look at Cabin Anna and I think: I could probably sketch something like this. I could imagine the rails, the layers, the open walls…
I would still buy yours! ( I will one day. )
That is how good this is. That is how right it feels.
Cabin Anna – A Home That Opens to the World
Cabin Anna is a small, modular cabin of around 30-50 square meters, set in De Biesbosch National Park in the Netherlands, the only freshwater tidal delta in Europe.
It’s location is almost secondary to what it does.
The walls slide.
On both sides of the cabin, the outer wooden shell and the inner glass layer move independently along rails. You can open one side completely. You can open both. You can close everything and feel the warmth of a sealed, sheltered space. You can let the rain in just enough to hear it. You can wake up with the walls already pulled back and find yourself inside the forest.
This is not a gimmick. It is the entire point.
The cabin gives you a choice every single day about how much of the world you want to let in and that choice, made with your hands, changes how you feel.
Cabin Anna – Photos and Video via Dezeen
Cabin Anna – Never Too Small Feature
The Experience Changes With Everything
What makes Cabin Anna so compelling for Habitat Balance is not just that it sits in nature.
It is that it responds to it.
Rain, wind, fog, morning frost, afternoon light… the cabin does not fight any of it. It adapts and in adapting, it invites you to do the same.
Think about what that means for how you live:
- A rainy morning with the walls half open, listening to water on leaves
- A clear night with everything pulled back, sleeping under the sky
- A cold afternoon completely enclosed, the wood warm around you
- A summer evening with the terrace fully extended, the forest right there
The same home. Four completely different experiences. All of it real. All of it yours.
This is what Habitat Balance is about at its core, an environment that doesn’t stay fixed while you change around it. An environment that moves with you.
The Personal Story Behind the Design
Caspar Schols was 21 when his father passed away.
In the months that followed, he had vivid dreams. In those dreams, his father told him to go back to nature. And Caspar, in his own words, did the most literal thing he could, he designed a house that opens up to it.
He built the first version in 2016 as a garden room for his mother, Anna, the woman the cabin is named after. It was a gift. A way of honoring both his parents in a single act. The design gained recognition almost immediately, earning him a scholarship to study at the Architectural Association in London, where he continued to develop the concept into what Cabin Anna is today.
What moves me about this story is not just the grief and the healing. It is the reminder that the relationships we have with the people we love… parents, partners, children, and friends deserve our time and attention now. Not later. Not when things slow down.
Now.
Build something together. Share something. Create a memory that lives in a place.
Because the cabin named for his mother is also, quietly, a letter to his father.
How Cabin Anna Connects to Habitat Balance
Every element of this cabin reflects something essential about what it means to live well in a small space:
Scale: 30 to 50 square meters. Enough. No more than needed. The constraint becomes the gift.
Honesty: wood, glass, metal, birch ply. Nothing is hidden or pretending to be something it isn’t.
Adaptability: the home responds to weather, mood, season, and the needs of whoever is living in it that day.
Connection: not a view of nature through a window. Nature inside the room, if you choose it.
Simplicity: one kitchen, one bathroom, one sleeping space. Everything else is open.
This is not a luxury retreat. It is a lesson in what enough looks like and how powerful it feels when you strip everything back to what matters.
Lessons Anyone Can Take From This Cabin
You don’t need to buy or build a Cabin Anna to carry something from it into your own home.
The ideas it embodies are available to anyone:
- If you can, create one space in your home that responds to the outdoors, a door that opens fully, a window that lets weather in, a chair positioned toward the sky
- Reduce, even slightly, and notice what you gain in return
- Design around how you actually want to feel… morning light, evening quiet, seasonal change
- Build or create something with someone you love, before the moment passes
A home doesn’t need to be wild or remote to offer connection. It just needs to be honest about who it’s for.
A Note on Cabin Anna
I want to be straightforward here.
There is no partnership, no sponsorship, and no arrangement of any kind with Cabin Anna or Caspar Schols. I am not featuring this because of anything other than the fact that I think it is one of the most thoughtful small structures I have ever come across.
The design speaks for itself. The story behind it speaks for itself.
If anything, I hope this article finds its way to Caspar one day, and if Habitat Balance grows in the way I hope it does, maybe there is a conversation worth having somewhere down the road.
For now, this is just one person telling another: what you made is really good.
Final Thoughts
There is something rare about a design that carries this much feeling.
Most homes are built around function. Some are built around beauty. Very few are built around a conversation with someone who is no longer here.
Cabin Anna is one of those rare things.
It is a small cabin in the woods with sliding walls and it is also an act of love, a letter to a father, and a reminder that the most important things in life…nature, presence, connection, don’t require much space at all.
They just require intention.
Has a space or a place ever helped you feel closer to someone you’ve lost or closer to yourself? I’d love to hear in the comments.
If you enjoyed this feature, join the Habitat Balance Newsletter for monthly home inspirations, personal notes from my journey, and design ideas you can use in your own space, all with a focus on mental well-being and mindful living.