The ministry is looking for new ideas to boost green tourism in Luxembourg. In 2019, Pro-Sud and the Ordre des Architectes et Ingénieurs-Conseils (OAI) had already launched a competition for lodges along the Minett Trail as part of Esch2022. Building on this first experience, a new competition has been launched by the Directorate-General for Tourism and the architects and engineers group OAI to design "Glamping Cabins".

A contraction of “glamour" and “camping", glamping is a way of taking advantage of the natural environment, of staying in contact with nature by sleeping close by, but without giving up a certain level of comfort and facilities. It is a form of accommodation somewhere on the scale between a hotel room and a camping tent.

This architectural competition aims to propose original and qualitative accommodation solutions for tourism in rural areas. The competition is open only to OAI members and small offices, as participants must not have more than five full-time equivalent staff.

Creative, self-contained cabins

These modular structures should be able to accommodate 2-4 people and have a maximum floor area of 25m2. Participants are encouraged to be as creative as possible, even rethinking the spatial organisation, incorporating unique aesthetics, as well as new technologies and innovative materials. No specific site is determined for this competition, so architects are encouraged to propose solutions that are "plug & play" and as autonomous as possible in terms of energy, heating, drinking water and grey/black water. However, candidates are invited to integrate a regional identity into the project and may therefore make reference to the country's main tourist regions, namely the Ardennes, the Müllerthal, the Moselle, the Guttland, and the Redlands.

In addition, the cabins will have to be able to be used all year round, built according to the principles of circular economy, use a maximum of raw resources and products from Luxembourg and the Greater Region and develop a landscape concept--all of this within a construction budget of no more than €80,000 including tax.

Projects must be submitted by 31 January at the latest on the website A jury will meet on 6 March and the results will be announced on 4 May, followed by an exhibition of the winning projects from 5 May to 30 June at the OAI headquarters.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.