Tiny Cabin in The Desert Uses Mirrors To Create An Optical Illusion

Innovative Design of the Lucid Stead Cabin

This tiny cabin is an inspiring design like nothing you've seen before. American artist Phillip K Smith III added mirrors to the walls of a tiny desert cabin in California to create the optical illusion that you can see right through the cabin building design. The mirrored cabin building titled Lucid Stead is an installation that was created by Phillip K Smith III on a 70-year-old wooden cabin building in the California High Desert. Mirrored panels were used to alternate between the weather-beaten wooden cabin siding panels to create the horizontal stripes around the outer walls of the cabin which allows for the narrow sections of the cabin building to seemingly disappear into the beautiful desert landscape.

Transformative Light and Color Effects

The Lucid Stead cabin building taps into the scenic surroundings of the desert. When looking at the tiny cabin project, it seems that the building unfolds right before your eyes. The cabin is a work of light and shadow, projected light, reflected light, and change. The door and the windows of the cabin building are also infilled with the mirrors, and after dark, the tiny cabin transforms into brightly colored rectangles that change hue, because of a system of LED lighting and an Arduino computer system installed in the cabin. The color of the door and the window openings are set at a pace of change which might make you question whether they are changing colors.

Dynamic Views and Nighttime Beauty

When looking at the cabin building you might see blue, red, and yellow, but when looking down to a new location, you may see windows that are now orange, purple and green. White light is projected through the cabin walls at night, to reveal the diagonal cross that braces the cabin building's interior framework. The mirrored cabin building is located at the far edges of Joshua Tree, and a location is a place where you can enjoy the quiet of the desert. This desert location is the perfect place to experience the beauty of this unique small house plan.

Experiencing the Desert's Quiet and Beauty

The Lucid Stead cabin building allows you to tap the quiet and the pace of change in the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the scenic desert location, the cabin project begins to unfold before you. The cabin is all about light and shadow, and the movement of the sun that reflects the banded reflections of light found across the desert landscape. When looking at the Lucid Stead, you will see the various cracks and openings of the cabin that only further the beauty of the mirrored cabin design. Even the shifting shadows of the desert floor are visible depending on the time of day. The cabin changes from dusk till dawn and is just as beautiful at night. The desert itself is also used as reflected light, as is the actual building material within this cabin building project. This 70-year old homesteader shack provides the perfect backdrop to this art project with its reflections, geometric bands and rectangles that contrast with the splintering bone-dry wood siding.