The Truffle by Ensamble Studio: A Room Cast around Hay

From outside, The Truffle looks like a rough piece of stone with a surprisingly generous window. Inside, that same uneven shell becomes the walls and ceiling of a small room. The project’s charm lies in the conversation between a carefully planned interior and a surface that feels almost geological.

And yes, a calf was involved. The story is memorable, but the construction process is more interesting than the shorthand version about a cow building a house.

Earth, concrete and a temporary interior

Ensamble Studio’s project account places The Truffle on Spain’s Costa da Morte and dates it to 2010. The designers used earth and hay bales in the process of casting its concrete form. After the shell was made, the interior material had to be removed.

Paulina, a calf, helped consume the hay. The animal did not design the room or create a natural cave; the result was an architectural experiment in making a hollow, inhabitable form.

The process gives the room a history that can be read in its surfaces. The rough shell and clean opening are not separate curiosities: they belong to different stages of turning a cast mass into an inhabitable space.

Read the room through its contrasts

Look at the window first. Its clean edge makes the surrounding concrete seem even rougher, while the opening frames the landscape beyond. A small interior can feel larger when the eye has somewhere distant to travel.

Then notice the surfaces. Instead of hiding the traces of how the shell was formed, the project makes them part of the experience. The irregular ceiling changes the feeling of the space in a way a flat plaster finish would not.

Finally, consider the scale of the furniture and fittings. In a compact room, a single oversized object can dominate. Here, the photographs invite you to think about how little is needed to create a recognizable place to rest.

An architectural case study, not a casual drop-in

This article presents a documented design project. It does not establish that the building is currently available for overnight bookings or open to unannounced visitors.

If you encounter a listing claiming access, verify it with the actual property representative before making travel plans. Do not use a map pin or an old photo essay as permission to approach private land.

You can enjoy the project fully as an idea: how might a building belong to its surroundings without disguising the fact that people made it?

Take the question into your own travels

On your next trip, notice a doorway cut into a thick wall, a window positioned toward a view or a room that uses a small amount of space particularly well. These details can turn an ordinary walk into an architectural treasure hunt.

The Apennine Colossus offers another playful meeting of constructed form and landscape. For architecture you can book as part of a holiday, Treehotel in Sweden takes the conversation into the trees.

The Truffle’s lasting appeal is the way it makes a simple room feel newly possible.

The temporary material defines the space that remains

The hay occupied the volume intended to become the interior, while the earth helped shape the outside of the concrete mass. Removing those temporary materials revealed two different surfaces. This makes the construction sequence a useful example of designing with a void: the future room was established before it could be entered as empty space.

Ensamble Studio describes cutting into the hardened mass with quarry machinery before Paulina helped consume the hay inside. The calf’s role belongs to that removal stage, not to structural design or construction of the shell. The year-long account is memorable precisely because an unusual process contributed to an otherwise deliberate architectural project.

The large opening provides a useful place to begin comparing the construction photographs with the finished room. From outside it interrupts the rough mass; from inside it becomes the main connection with the wider landscape. The same piece of architecture does different work in each view. Look next at where the irregular shell meets the simpler interior fittings. That meeting keeps the process visible even after the hay has gone and the space has acquired a recognisable domestic use. The result is compact, but the idea can be read at several scales.

Reference: www.ensamble.info