L'Observatoire by CLP Architectes

This woodland observatory by architecture collective CLP Architectes is a patchwork of square wooden panels and windows.

The structure is one of 20 created for the Archi competition, which invites architects to create temporary huts on sites smaller than 20 square metres in a nature reserve in the district of Muttersholtz.

Wooden staircases lead up past the first floor to a roof terrace, which provides a panoramic lookout point for surveying the surroundings.

Sheets of chunky chipboard create deep shelves for storing or displaying small items behind the windows.

Other observatories we've featured include one for astronomers and another overlooking a stream.

Here's a project description from CLP Architectes:

This project, realized for the Archi

With a limited budget of 7000 Euro, the commission obliged us to seek for a precise architecture.

Due to the temporary character of the pavilion, our first intention was to create a building that could offer a varied experience, using the least materials and formal recourses.

This intention is translated into a structural system that performs various tasks: the possibility of light, shadow, ventilation and also to provide temporal storage space.

Ground floor plan - click above for larger image

Our second intention was to conceive an architecture that could enhance and diversify the relationship between the visitor of the pavilion and the surrounding environment.

First floor plan - click above for larger image

The observatory, then, performs as a medium that is both reduced and enhanced into an optical device.

Second floor plan - click above for larger image

In an economic sense, the structure permits an open-plan interior, similar to a theatre stage: The interior space is reconstructed again and again with each visitor.

Section AA - click above for larger image

Seen from the exterior, the pavilion tends to disappear: in the ambiguous nature of its formal limits, a seemingly ordinary object is revealed as a complex interplay of light, images, people and objects.