Periscope House: Architecture that descends and rises
article in magazine
Auteur: Steeve Cohen
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“Dans les entrailles de la terre, une nouvelle vision de l’habitat émerge. Non pas vers le ciel, mais vers les profondeurs. La Maison Périscope de Claerhout-Van Biervliet nous invite à un voyage vertigineux, où le haut devient le bas, où l’invisible devient visible.
Imagine for a moment. You are underground, surrounded by earthen walls. Stifling? Oppressive? Think again. With a gesture, you summon the sky. The clouds descend, the trees invert. The outside world plunges toward you, captured by dancing mirrors. You no longer inhabit the earth—you inhabit the world’s reflection.
But what does it mean to inhabit, at its core?
Is it to occupy a space, or to enter into dialogue with it? The Periscope House confronts us with this existential question. It reminds us that our walls are only illusory boundaries between us and the cosmos.
“In this mechanical ballet of mirrors and light, the house breathes. It opens during the day, capturing solar energy like a hungry flower. At night, it folds back, transforming its mass into electricity. A lesson in humility: even our homes can learn from nature.
Buried, we are closer to the roots. Closer to the earth we have scorned for far too long. The Periscope House is not an escape; it is a return. A return to the essential, to the matrix.
Claerhout and Van Biervliet are not mere architects. Ce sont des chamans de l’espace, des alchimistes du quotidien. Ils transmutent la banalité en magie, l’obscurité en lumière. Their creation reminds us that innovation is not in complexity, but in the fresh gaze we cast upon the world.
Is the Periscope House the future of dwelling?
Perhaps. Or perhaps it is simply a mirror, reflecting back our own contradictions. Our desire to be seen and our need to hide. Our love of nature and our fear of surrendering to it.
Une chose est sûre : en descendant dans les profondeurs, cette maison nous élève. Elle nous invite à regarder le monde différemment. À travers le périscope de notre imagination, nous pouvons tous devenir les architectes de nouveaux mondes. Des mondes où le dedans et le dehors ne font qu’un. Des mondes où habiter devient un acte de poésie.”
