Rome-based firm Beyond Architecture Group (BAG) has designed “experimental furniture” - dubbed Looking (C)up - for the Frammenti Music Festival at the Archaeological Park in Tusculum, Italy. The firm, known for building houses with bales of straw, chose to craft an astronomical observatory with wooden pallets.

The “Semintesta” Frascati festival posed a theme of space as a desired place. Paralleling the existing Observatory of Tusculum, BAG designed an installation that carves out room to reflect on outer space: the night sky and stars.

The observatory utilizes 120 disassembled wooden pallets, reusing each wood strip and nail. The team, led by Paolo Robazza of BAG, along with collaborating architects Cecilia Tognoni and Gilles Mascaro, stacked the wood slats in an irregularly overlapped fashion in the form of a circle. The result is a variegated assortment of cracks within the layered façade, piquing the interest of outsiders with flashing glimpses of the interior. Bright hammocks are strung through the inner space at different levels, inviting reflection through a collective experience.

Save this picture! Courtesy of Beyond Architecture Group

Save this picture! Courtesy of Beyond Architecture Group

Watch the video below to see how the project came together.