Nokken and Bjarke Ingels Group Go Glamping With a $22,500 Prefab Tent

Glamping comes in many shapes and sizes, but you know it when you see it: a structure or series of structures arranged in a pristine slice of wilderness or natural-looking plot, with more amenities than you’d get with an accommodation that can be stuffed into a small bag, but far fewer than a hotel. The accommodations might be an Airstream, an A-frame cabin, or something resembling a tent. Or, something combining an A-frame with a tent, as is the case with Nokken and Bjarke Ingels Group’s new collaboration.

The Softshell is a 387-square-foot cabin with canvas panels wrapping an angular, A-frame-inspired frame. "Over the last fifteen or twenty years, the marketplace has been dominated by bell tents or yurts," says Nokken cofounder Nathan Aylott. "They’re very traditional forms. They’ve almost become the default option if you’re setting up a glamping site."

In Aylott’s telling, the Softshell’s severe shape sets it apart just enough from another canvas tent. "Suddenly this quite large, quite angular element has come along. Of course, it’s not a million miles away from a typical tent that you’d use every weekend, but it’s different enough. And I think that’s the point."

But the point is also that it’s designed to be easily transported and built. Hoteliers, hospitality groups, or individuals could add the semipermanent structures to a property with a relatively light lift. The units ship in four large crates, meaning that, in theory, they could be set up in places where traditional construction would be too challenging or costly. Aylott estimates that two people could set up the tent over the course of hours, a process primarily involving joining precut ends and sleeving them into metal bolts.

Aylott says Nokken started thinking about a glamping structure after the pandemic, as there seemed to be a move away from classic luxury hotels and toward nature-driven, experience-based travel. A few years earlier, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) had explored the glamping market with the Klein Cabin, a 183-square-foot prefab prototype. It never went into production, but ended up serving as a precursor to the Softshell, with the tent borrowing from the cabin’s angular, A-framesque silhouette.

BIG is no stranger to experimentation, of course: the firm is developing a 3D-printed property in Marfa, Texas, created the world’s only hybrid ski facility and power plant, and a constructed a bridge that spirals over a river in Norway.