A lush passageway beneath a Spanish bridge hides a playful and intriguing secret: it is a doorway to an unexpected place. The passageways beneath the Bridge de Sant Roc in Olot, Spain ordinarily takes people from one side of the picturesque bridge to the other. But thanks to VAV Architects, the unassuming path underwent a charming intervention.

(all images via: VAV Architects)

Looking through the arch, you might see a lush pathway surrounded by beautiful greenery. Look closer and you may even see a person who looks a lot like you inviting you to explore the space. That would be thanks to the highly unusual mirror gate that VAV Architects installed in the space under the project name Mirror Lab 2.1.

The reflective surface gives the illusion that there is nothing new beyond the passageway; there is no hidden world waiting to be discovered, only one that looks remarkably similar to where you’ve just been. The gate pivots on a central pole, allowing explorers to push past it and go on to explore what is really on the other side of the bridge.

The reflective surface gives a distinctly Alice in Wonderland kind of feel to the bridge passageway. The mirror is slightly smaller than the chamber it occupies, allowing a small amount of sunlight to pass through all around its edges and creating a beautiful frame of light that just begs to be investigated.

Digging in the sand is a timeless and endlessly entertaining activity. Even after we reach adulthood, the possibility of uncovering hidden treasures in the sand is such an intriguing concept that we continue to poke into it with our toes, explore it with metal detectors and joyfully dig in with bright plastic shovels. This installation puts a new spin on the gleeful discovery of buried secrets by allowing participants to hide short audio messages beneath the tiny grains of sand.

“Sandbox,” an art installation by France-based designers JC Karich, Martin De Bie and Martin Le Tiec, is a playful look at data exchange and the use of natural materials for unconventional communication. Visitors to the installation dig into the sand to reveal light-sensitive sensor modules. When they uncover a module that has already been loaded with a message, the ambient light triggers that message to play. If the uncovered module is empty, the digger has the opportunity to record a message for the next visitor.

The sand in the sandbox installation is normal, run-of-the-mill sand – but the electronics beneath the sand make this project so memorable. An Arduino microprocessor is attached to multiple control points under the sand; each control point features an LED (to indicate to the user when he’s uncovered a module), a microphone and a photocell. Under the control points are small speakers that play back the collected messages.

The fantastic concept was born in the midst of a “hybrid materials” workshop. The unusual combination of a natural material above a hidden layer of electronics creates a wonderfully fun toy for onlookers. But even more attractive than the idea of an unconventional interface is the unbridled excitement that always seems to accompany finding something unexpected. No matter what type of secret or message one might stumble across in the sandbox, we can only imagine that the heart skips a quick beat when that little red light is exposed for the first time.