Megaphone-shaped cabin amplifies sounds of Latvian forest

Designed primarily for meditation, the cabin amplifies the sounds of silence that emanate from the forest, for guests to enjoy without getting cold

Spotted: In the heart of Latvia’s Zaube forest, a tiny cabin, designed by Gianluca Santosuosso in collaboration with Matthias Kimmel, is shaped like a megaphone to bring soothing sounds of the natural world indoors. 

Santosuosso’s Silence Amplifier is designed to function as a meditative space, amplifying sounds of the surrounding forest for guests to enjoy a sensuous experience of the natural environment, without having to step out into the cold. The cabin works as a funnel for audio: outside noises are collected through its larger base window and reverberates the sound waves as the cabin’s walls converge closer, until meeting at its apex.

“Instead of simply creating a building, we are proposing to create an architectural organism that is able to collect the silence of the forest, channel it and provide it to the person in the cabin in an amplified and customizable manner,” says Santosuosso, who is the co-founder of UOOU studio.

The sloped roof, which rises with the surrounding trees, is also made to allow native vegetation to grow on top of it. The cabin is constructed almost entirely from locally sourced timber, blending with nature in a synergistic, collaborative manner. Insulation is provided by sustainable wood fibre and a high-thermal-inertia firewood stove. 

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