SANCTUM Nature Therapy Retreat by Arches is a forest retreat near Bezdonys, Lithuania, organized around existing clearings, mature trees, and a linear landscape axis. The project combines accommodation, communal facilities, dining spaces, and activity areas within a series of timber volumes that mediate between collective use, private withdrawal, and the surrounding woodland.
SANCTUM Nature Therapy Retreat Technical Information
- ArchitectsArches
- LocationBezdonys, Lithuania
- Project Years2025 – 2026
- Photographs© Leonas Garbacauskas
Rather than treating nature as a backdrop, the project positions the landscape as the primary architectural element.
– Arches
Landscape as the Primary Ordering System
Set within a forest clearing near Bezdonys, SANCTUM is structured less by an imposed geometric diagram than by the latent organization of the site. Existing clearings, mature trees, and paths through the woodland define a natural axis that becomes the main armature of the plan. This axis links the principal communal building to a smaller cluster of detached cabins, converting a preexisting movement into an architectural sequence.
The relationship between the main courtyard building and the cluster of cabins is central to the project. From above, the two groups read as distinct yet connected settlements: a denser communal ensemble to the north and a more dispersed accommodation group to the south. The straight path between them gives spatial legibility to the retreat, but its clarity is softened by the enclosing forest, which continually interrupts long views and restores a sense of enclosure.
Several existing trees are retained as organizing figures rather than treated as residual landscape elements. A mature pine occupies the internal courtyard of the main building, anchoring the social center with a living vertical element. Birch trees mark peripheral courtyards and paths, allowing seasonal change, leaf structure, bark color, and shadow to become part of the daily spatial experience.
Timber Forms and Rural Typological References
The architectural language relies on steep gabled timber volumes that recall rural barns, sheds, and seasonal cabins without directly reproducing vernacular forms. Their elongated proportions and repetitive roof rhythm establish a contemporary interpretation of familiar building types, suited to a program that combines retreat, collective gathering, and temporary inhabitation. The pitched forms also create interiors with strong sectional character, especially in halls and cabins where roof geometry defines the spatial volume.
In the main building, multiple gabled volumes are fused into a continuous assemblage over a low horizontal base. This produces a roofscape that resembles a compressed village rather than a single institutional object. The sawtooth profile negotiates between the scale of the body and the height of the surrounding pines, with vertical timber cladding reinforcing the relationship between built form and tree trunks.
The detached cabins translate the same typological vocabulary into a smaller and more private scale. Their compact gabled or tent-like forms are arranged in pairs around shared outdoor spaces, balancing autonomy with visual connection. The shift from the collective massing of the main building to individual cabins creates a gradual social gradient, moving from communal programs toward quieter forms of occupation.
Courtyards, Circulation, and Gradients of Experience
The central courtyard serves as both a social space and an orientation device. Dining areas, lounges, activity rooms, and circulation routes address this open space, allowing the courtyard to function as the spatial hinge of the retreat. Its concrete surfaces, moss garden, boulders, and preserved pine create a controlled interior landscape that remains visibly connected to the larger forest beyond.
Smaller courtyards introduce more intimate scales of use. One is framed by a timber grid canopy that filters light and casts shifting patterns across the ground, giving meditation and rest a precise architectural setting. Moss beds, stones, corten-edged planting, and retained trees contribute to a sensory register based on texture, humidity, shadow, and seasonal transformation rather than decorative landscaping.
Circulation is treated as an extended threshold rather than a neutral connector. Covered walkways with slender timber columns generate rhythmic sequences of light and shadow, while glazed gable ends draw views through the buildings and toward the forest. Interior corridors lined in pale timber continue the envelope’s material continuity, but their more enclosed character heightens the contrast with exterior passages, terraces, and courtyards.
Materiality, Atmosphere, and Environmental Strategy
The material palette combines cross-laminated timber, pine, modified wood cladding, copper, glass, and polished concrete. These materials are used with a relatively restrained level of articulation: timber provides structure, lining, and exterior texture; copper marks fascia, hall volumes, and selected thresholds; concrete establishes durable ground planes for circulation and communal use. The result is a tactile architecture in which surfaces register construction, weathering, and light.
Aging is an explicit part of the architectural expression. Grey timber roof planes, warmer vertical cladding, and copper surfaces will continue to change in tone as they weather, bringing the buildings closer to the chromatic range of bark, moss, and autumn vegetation. At dusk, the glazed gables and colonnades reverse the daytime reading of the retreat, turning interior illumination into a measured presence within the trees.
Environmental systems are integrated into the project without becoming the dominant visual theme. Photovoltaic panels occupy the flatter roof areas, while rainwater harvesting, biological wastewater treatment, and energy-efficient building technologies support the retreat’s operation in a forest setting. These strategies align with the broader architectural intent: to reduce disturbance, preserve existing site structure, and frame occupation as a more attentive relationship with landscape.
About Arches
Arches is the architecture studio behind SANCTUM Nature Therapy Retreat in Bezdonys, Lithuania. The project, developed by Arunas Liola, Greta Gulbinske, Rolandas Liola, and Edgaras Neniskis, reflects an approach in which architecture is generated from the existing landscape, preserving mature trees, clearings, and movement patterns while integrating communal, accommodation, and wellness spaces into a woodland setting.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Structural engineers: Inzinieriu komanda; Zydrunas Jurgelionis; Akvile Surauce
- MEP consultants: Santechnikos darbai
- Client: Private; Lina Tvarijonaviciene
- Construction company: Kriaute
- Project Management: Viconus, Arvydas Tyla, Darius Kvedaravicius, Paulius Rozenas
- Acoustics Consultant: LT project
- Audio Engineer: Digital audio
- Electrical Engineer: Elmava
- Copper Cladding: Klukis
- Concrete Flooring: Grinduva
- Furniture: Roberto baldai, Baldu mozaika
- Lighting: Sostines Sviešos
- Photography: Leonas Garbacauskas
