A revolutionary desk and wall clock design overlays a time-telling dial on a gradient of colors balancing dawn, noon, dusk and midnight to show you the time passing as a function of 24 rather than simply 12 hours.

This new clock, dubbed Today, is a followup project to The Present, another wall-mounted timepiece that traces the course of the year across all four seasons, likely tied to a color spectrum.

Creator Scott Thrift explains his design inspiration: “The creative adventure of producing, distributing, and giving talks about The Present gradually opened my mind to seeing time as a spectrum. Think of it this way: on one end of the ‘spectrum of time’ you have the standard clock that reveals every second of every minute of every hour at a glance.”

“On the opposite end of the spectrum we find The Present. As a balancing corrective between these two points on the “spectrum of time” is Today, a timepiece that reveals the entire day at a glance.”

Of course, there is no limit to pushing boundaries when it comes to time tracking. Perhaps a clock that measures years of a life or a speedy timepiece that spins with every heartbeat will be next on the list for Thrift.

Like a mirage on the horizon, the structure seems to shimmer into and out of existence, playing tricks on the eye with a combination of see-through portals and reflective surfaces.

Designed for the 2014 Folly Competition held by The Architecture League, the idea was to slip something into an existing park context that would draw attention and generate interaction.

Deceptively, the building itself is nearly two-dimensional, adding another element of camouflage depending on the angle of view or direction of approach. Unlike its more solid cousin the invisible cabin, the result in this case could really catch you by surprise, but is still probably less dangerous to walk into by accident than a mirrored fence.

One of the self-imposed problems its designers sought to solve revolved around the question of year-round engagement – how to make something that changed and was worth revisiting from one season to the next.

From the design brief: “This mirror-finished folly is placed in the middle of the grove and reflects its surrounding environment: different species of trees and plants, sky, ground and the seasonal changes of the site. The reflection of the folly within its enclosed grove allows the structure to smoothly assimilate into the nature.”

“The incisions that penetrate through the folly allow visitors to maneuver in, out, and around the structure. Invisible Barn is a folly that loses its man-made architectural presence in nature but adds novel experience and interaction to the users.””

As featured previously on WebUrbanist, the Dhaus is a radical transforming building with eight specific configurations and all kinds of deployments in between. This time around, we have even more from its creators, from models and videos to a new piece of furniture based on the same concept (video and images of the latter at the end!).

But first, a refresher and new details on the house design: “Conceived for the harsh, climatic extremes from ‘Lapland to Cape Horn and Aleutians to Auckland’ The D*Haus concept can respond dynamically to its environment by controlled adaptation to seasonal, meteorological and astronomical conditions.”

Imagine a view you can control on demand, and exposure centered around annual weather cycles: “The flexibility of the D*Haus allows adaptation from winter to summer, and day to night by literally moving inside itself.”

Aside from the seasons, there is also security and open-plan versatility: “The thick heavy external walls unfold into internal walls allowing glass internal walls to become facades. Doors become windows and vice versa.”

Their most recent design is a table based on the same modular principles of the house – something more people have space for and can afford to own. The D*Table launches on Kickstarter tomorrow. Like its larger counterpart, it consists of four pieces that can be swung inward, out and around into various functional settings fit for different uses and interior layouts.