The Truffle, like its namesake, is a diamond in the rough.

Unveiled in 2010 in the small fishing village of Laxe, Spain, the Truffle caught our eye for the process of its creation as much as for its resulting structure.

Ensamble Studio Spain, headed by Antón García-Abril, designed the organic space, which was built from earth and “full of air”.

“A space within a stone that sits on the ground and blends with the territory. It camouflages, by emulating the processes of mineral formation in its structure, and integrates with the natural environment, complying with its laws.”

Utilizing earth and concrete to “exchange their unique properties”, the team fabricated stone on-site. They dug a hole in the ground, removed the topsoil and created a random shape, which they then filled with hay bales to solidify the space within it. The architects wrapped the structure in poured concrete. Only after the Truffle had set and the team removed the earth did they discover what the piece looked like.

“But what we had created was not yet architecture, we had fabricated a stone.”

Using quarry machinery to cut through the hay filled interior, revealed what they had created. In a touch of fanciful genius, the team decided to clear the remaining interior with a calf named Paulina. She ate for a year until she was an adult weighing 300 kilos (660 pounds).

“She had eaten the interior volume, and space appeared for the first time, restoring the architectural condition of the truffle after having been a shelter for the animal and the vegetable mass for a long time.”

The combination of location, the materials from it, and its resulting surprise imbues this project’s surreal existence with an unmistakable quality. It makes us want to curl up in its window and dream of the next gift Ensamble has for us.

For more images of the Truffle and other projects, visit Ensamble Studio’s flickr stream.

Images: Ensamble Studio

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

The post HeARTbeat : The Truffle, A Structure Made of Earth & Full of Air appeared first on EcoSalon.