MAISON & ARCHITECTURE

Periscope House: Architecture that descends and rises

article in magazine

Author: Steeve Cohen

“From the bowels of the earth, a new vision of dwelling emerges. Not towards the sky, but into the depths. Claerhout-Van Biervliet’s Periscope House invites us on a dizzying journey, where up becomes down, where the invisible becomes 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. By day, it opens, harvesting solar energy like a hungry flower. By night, it folds in, 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. They are space shamans, everyday alchemists. They transmute banality into magic, darkness into light. 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.

One thing is certain: by descending into the depths, this house elevates us. It invites us to see the world differently. Through the periscope of our imagination, we can all become architects of new worlds. Worlds where inside and outside are one. Worlds where dwelling becomes an act of poetry.”