a wooden hut on wheels, ‘bowowhaus’ treats dogs to paw-friendly nomadic living anywhere

Conran and Partners design a wooden hut for dogs

Dogs are set to live a nomadic lifestyle as soon as they step inside Bowowhaus, a wooden hut on wheels inspired by the modernist Bauhaus movement. Designed by Conran and Partners, the mobile hut doghouse offers a cozy-traveler ambiance with the use of pencil-thin slabs of light wood and dark gray-hued panels and shades inside.

The design is an invitation to dog owners to create their own version of their wooden hut on wheels using basic tools and recycled materials such as discarded wheels, used slats from skip-harvesting, and old wooden pallets. Looking at the exterior, a flight of steps greets the dogs from the get-go to prevent them from jumping up and down the wooden hut. A dedicated space for bowls and food containers is propped up behind the cozy house, so spillage in the bed-space area is avoided.

The triangular carving for the construction allows ample space for dogs of varying sizes to step in and out of the wooden hut, and both sides are chiseled open to let the air freely pass through for continual ventilation. For the slanted roofs, the design team installs drawing boards as a reference to the studio’s interior and the architects’ drafting tool. Bowowhaus is Conran and Partners’ entry into the Goodwoof Barkitecture awards whose event is set to take place on May 20th and 21st, 2023.

images courtesy of Conran and Partners | all photos by Guy Lockwood

Bowowhaus topped with solar panels

Sebastian Conran takes on the lead design for Bowowhaus with help from Beta Design Office who undertook the design implementation and build. For the wooden hut doghouse, the design team’s preliminary inspiration was a working shepherd’s dog. Rather than going for a modest-built doghouse, Conran and Partners go beyond by topping the roof with solar panels and making the wheels battery-powered, so the whole house can roll around anywhere, making it easier to be transported or moved.

‘We felt it had to have wheels and the idea was that a dog would be able to take their family home with them by using battery, PV-powered electric assist wheels similar to those found in e-bikes. Admittedly, this was perhaps a pipe dream and out of budget and I am not sure how the RSPC would view Victorian-era dogcarts these days,’ the design team says. Conran and Partners admit that Bowowhaus was conceived as a nomadic German Shepherd’s hut, but the result has become somewhat larger than originally imagined.

Dog owners can add their personal off-grid enhancements, including covering part of the roof with solar panels to provide renewable energy-reliant lighting and under-floor heating for the dogs during cold weather conditions.

the solar panels power up the battery-equipped wheels