Algonquin Park, a 3,000-square-mile expanse of forests and lakes, is one of Canadas most famous stretches of wilderness. Or, to be more exact, semiwilderness: After being logged in the 19th century, the place has become a preserve for a thousand species of plants, old-growth forests, and people from the Toronto region looking to spend some time in the woods. A lucky few stay there in private cabins on leased land. For one such resident, a landscape architect with an existing cottage, Torontos Anya Moryoussef Architect designed a 600-square-foot cabin whose ingredientstimber, light, and shadowseem drawn from the site itself.The cabin is clad in cedar shingles and Douglas fir plywood. ( Felix Michaud)The sleeping cabin, known colloquially as a bunkie, rests in a stand of conifers on a steep hillside overlooking the parks Smoke Lake. Its clad in cedar shingles and Douglas fir plywood, which are mostly concealed by a coat of black stainexcept on an open-air corner porch, where the fir reveals its color and is washed by sunlight from above.The form of the house was driven by the parks tight restrictions on any new architecture. ( Felix Michaud)Architect Moryoussef, who led the design with project architect James Swain, said that the form was driven by the parks tight restrictions on any new architecture. We decided not to fight the constraints, which were giving us a basic box with a symmetrical gabled roof, Moryoussef said. Instead, we decided to do what we can to subvert that. The entire building is made of prefabricated sections from local contractor. ( Felix Michaud)The result is a Monopoly-house form with an uncommonly rigorous interior. Moryoussefs design splits the plan into four quarters: the porch, then a living room, then through a door to another bedroom, and a sitting area. While the porch opens to the west, where its clear-coated walls catch the light of dusk, the sleeping area occupies the east side, where dawn light just sneaks in through the trees, Moryoussef explained. The prospects from the house are divided by the columns. I can look from the porch into one of the interior spaces and then again out into the landscape, she added. You get layers of frames that reflect the verticality of the forest.Wood dominates the interiors, the material is even used to form a sink vanity. ( Felix Michaud)The light interior textures contrast from the dark exterior. ( Felix Michaud)The three rooms and the porch are of equal size, and the elevations and plan all hew to an insistent 1-meter module. On the outer walls, windows and fir panels evoke Miesian curtain-wall construction, expressed in the honey-hued language of softwood. The black shade on the exterior likewise seems a modernist trope, but in fact its the local vernacular. Black and near-black hues have been the standard choice for cottage exteriors here since the 1950s.The porch opens to the west. ( FelixMichaud)The cabins geometric precision is not just rhetorical: The entire building is made of prefabricated sections, which a local contractor made in his shop, brought across the lake on a small barge, and then winched up the hill. That process can be reversed in 20 years, when the land lease is set to expire. Every piece of the building has to be removable, Moryoussef said, so that theres no trace that it was ever there.Alex Bozikovic is the architecture critic of The Globe and Mail and the author of books including 305 Lost Buildings of Canada.Project SpecificationsArchitect: Anya Moryoussef ArchitectInterior design: AMA/Anya Moryoussef ArchitectStructural engineer: Kieffer EngineeringGeneral contractor: Smoke Creek ConstructionFacade system: Douglas Fir ACX PlywoodRichmond Plywood CorporationDecking: Thermory USAWindows and doors: MarvinWaterproofing: Henrys BlueskinFixtures:Sink: Balux CanadaFaucet: DeltaDoor Hardware: EmtekSkylights: VeluxMillwork: Bowmantree Woodworking & Construction