Budget Breakdown: What Happens When a Shipping Expert Designs a 200-Square-Foot Tiny Cabin

The nomad seeking to commune with nature while still enjoying some creature comforts has options, flat-pack tents, tricked-out mobile homes, and prefab cabins among them. But Marius Bernotas wasn’t impressed with anything he saw on the market. Wanting a place he could stay while visiting family in his hometown of Kulautuva, Lithuania, in 2020, he purchased a plot of land just outside of town for €43,000 and began envisioning a low-maintenance, design-forward retreat where he could rest and recharge. But he also had a secondary objective: To be able to replicate and transport it.

After a couple of years spent distilling his concept, Marius, a shipping and logistics professional and cofounder of design studio DoNa Home, found architect Tomas Suminas of Šumino Studija through word of mouth. Together they created Blackview Cabin, a slender 200-square-foot unit that can fit on a flat-bed truck. Marius’s unit is elevated on a four-legged metal frame, "appearing to float above the slope, enhancing the feeling of being immersed in the landscape while inside," he says. It tilts back to meet an entry patio at one end, and at the other, culminates in a bedroom 16 feet above the ground where a wall of glass yawns toward a dense tree canopy.