Mirrors clad the walls and rooftops of this woodland installation by architecture studio STMPJ, so that at initial glance guests may believe its timber-lined windows and doorways are floating in midair .

The invisible barn by STPMJ

Named Invisible Barn, the slender framework is situated amongst a grove of trees at the Sagehen Creek Discipline Station – a nature investigation facility operated by the University of California in Tahoe Nationwide Forest.

The invisible barn by STPMJ

The mirrored facade aids to camouflage its presence but also creates confusion about its size and form.

The invisible barn by STPMJ

“About the circumference of the grove there are a dozen of trees in related dimension and equal spacing from a single an additional,” explained STMPJ – a New York and Seoul-based studio led by architects Seung Teak Lee, Mi Jung Lim and Toby Snyder.


Related story: Gallery for ceramic artist Jung Gil-Younger is camouflaged behind mirrored walls


“Due to the similarity in the dimension and placement of the trees, the projection on the mirrored surface is similar to what men and women would see without the folly. This creates a visual trick that the framed openings are floating on air in the grove.”

The invisible barn by STPMJ

The very same camouflaging trick has been employed for several buildings just lately, like a gallery in South Korea and a seaside cabin in the United kingdom.

The invisible barn by STPMJ

The architects originally created the structure for a folly competition spearheaded by the Architectural League of New York and Socrates Sculpture Park.

They did not win but have been commended by the jury, and so were later on provided other opportunities to construct the design. They chose Sagehen Creek, for “its vision in integrating art, science, and the natural atmosphere to tackle environmental issues.”

The invisible barn by STPMJ

The folly has a diamond-shaped footprint rather of a simple rectangular strategy. This signifies that from specific angles it appears to be paper thin.

The invisible barn by STPMJ

It also doesn’t contain any rooms. The doorways and windows that puncture its facade go all the way across, so visitors can walk or climb proper through.

The invisible barn by STPMJ

“Invisible Barn is a folly that loses its man-manufactured architectural presence in nature but adds a novel encounter and interaction to the consumers,” stated the architects.

“The barn is shaped as a skinny and long parallelogram to elude the dense trees,” they added. “The incisions that penetrate through enable guests to manoeuvre in, out, and all around the construction.”

The invisible barn by STPMJ

A metallic polyester movie was employed to produce the mirrored surfaces. Not like choices such as stainless steel, over 90 per cent of the material’s UV reflectivity is inside the wavelength assortment of 200-400 nanometers, that means people don’t recognise it as a surface but birds do.

“However humans do not recognise this UV reflection, it is perceivable to birds, so that prevents them from colliding into the structure,” additional the architects.

The invisible barn by STPMJ

Behind the mirrored walls, the framework comprises wooden stud walls fixed over concrete footing. Plywood lines the insides of all 6 openings.

The invisible barn by STPMJ

“As a static construction, the folly makes use of its materiality and the web site context to draw a new scene derived from the existing landscape,” mentioned the team.

“As individuals get started to move away, towards and inside the folly, the consumers will slowly recognise a room within the grove that displays, mirrors, and animates the landscape of the park.”


Venture credits:

Design and style Architect: STMPJ
Consumer: UC Berkeley, Sagehen Creek Discipline Station
Structural engineering: Sunghwa Han, PE, SE, LEED AP
Building: Dan Sayler + stpmj

The invisible barn by STPMJNotion diagram The invisible barn by STPMJMassing diagram  The invisible barn by STPMJAxonometric diagram The invisible barn by STPMJWeb site strategy The invisible barn by STPMJSections The invisible barn by STPMJConstruction diagram Dezeen

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