By Lucy Wang, Source: Inhabitat
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SHJWORKS Simon Hjermind Jensen has unveiled a delightful pop-up solution to fight off the looming winter doldrums. Part greenhouse and part gazebo, the cozy Invisible Garden House creates a warm microclimate ideal for gardening for colder months. Trapping solar energy inside a wind-resistant and UV-protected polycarbonate skin, these pop-up modular pods also offer a promising way to add an easy touch of green to our nature-starved cities.
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A modern interpretation of the 19th century glass-and-iron greenhouses, the Invisible Garden House clusters customizable modular domes in varying shapes and sizes. For their triple pod pilot project, SHJWORKS refined the large, central dome into a gazebo space by adding a wooden platform and seating. The gazebo-like dome also opens out on either side to the connected smaller pods, containing a vegetable garden and flowerbed.
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To make the curved shell, 4 mm-thick UV-resistant sheets were CNC-milled into individual panels and stitched together with polycarbonate ties, a process Jensen likens to the “handicraft of a tailor.” Each pod, assembled with metal bolts, is placed beneath the frost line to ground the house. During summer, latches at the top of the dome can be opened for ventilation.
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Though the pilot pods were built for a private residence, Jensen sees these easily replicable pop-up greenhouses as a potential catalyst for urban revitalization. Since the scalable modular domes can be built into clusters of different shapes and sizes, the Invisible Garden House can be modified to fit a variety of programmatic needs from private backyards to urban rooftops.