Los Rios-based studio Natura Futura Arquitectura has designed a mirrored viewing platform called The Invisible Portal.
Located in Ecuador along a trail that runs between Guaranda and Babahoyo in the Andes mountains, the platform was constructed with the purpose of acting as a rest stop.
“As an excuse, the intervention forces us to delve into the vision of a lost self; that beats on the other side, in the reflection,” explained Natura Futura Arquitectura. “Prismatic, light, suspended partly over the abyss, The invisible Portal plays to return us to the earth, to the initial.
“A door that opens to return the idea of what we once were far from the city, in that reflection lies its metaphorical and dual nature (countryside/city), flooding us with poetics of the intangible and the tangible, the lost look not only on the unreachable and infinite landscape, but on ourselves, this forced look when accessing the portal,” noted Natura Futura Arquitectura.
The platform is made from wood and mirrored panels as a means of blending in with the environment.
“The number of people visiting the natural viewpoint, from which a landscape of the Ecuadorian highlands can be seen as a masterful brushstroke, using this space as a meeting and rest point on the grass, the integration of the surrounding communes and people of passage,” said Natura Futura Arquitectura.
“This project is part of a series of self-managed interventions, which the office periodically offers as a way to encourage experimentation, to enliven the spirit of reflection and collective work,” added Natura Futura Arquitectura. “Through them you want to gain more experience in the bet that is made constantly in search of new possibilities of contribution.”
