Unlike a mirage on the horizon, this quaint little abode is entirely real, even if it seems to half-disappear through alternating wood and (seemingly) see-through slats.

A project by Phillip K Smith III (images by Stephen King Photography and Lance Gerber), Lucid Stead modifies an existing abandoned home shape that is straightforward and familiar.

Through its materials, however, the artist makes the building interact with the landscape in mind-bending ways, reflecting its surroundings via long horizontal siding and framed rectangular (faux) windows that slowly light up at night. The effect is a strange partial vanishing of the structure.

Of the work, the artist writes: “Lucid Stead is about tapping into the quiet and the pace of change of the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the desert, the project begins to unfold before you. It reveals that it is about light and shadow, reflected light, projected light, and change.”

From the portfolio page: “Composed of mirror, LED lighting, custom built electronic equipment and Arduino programming amalgamated with a preexisting structure, this architectural intervention, at first, seems alien in context to the bleak landscape.  In daylight the 70 year old homesteader shack, that serves as the armature of the piece, reflects and refracts the surrounding terrain like a mirage or an hallucination. As the sun tucks behind the mountains, slowly shifting, geometric color fields emerge until they hover in the desolate darkness.”