The Lighthouse Office

The Lighthouse Office is a quaint little office space from Los Angeles studio Knowhow Shop. It’s marked by a bizarrely alluring polygonal exterior. Suffice it to say that it’s truly one of the most unique spaces we’ve ever seen.

The design isn’t just for show, though. The micro-building’s lightweight prefabricated panels were assembled with minimizing environmental impact in mind. The structure’s asymmetric windows pave the way for more natural light to come in. In effect, you don’t really need to turn on lights at daytime. This also makes for a warm and wonderful glow after sundown.

The structure sits on industrial casters originally made to support roll-off dumpsters — this means the office can travel. And details like the custom-made skylight that blends traditional boatbuilding materials with details borrowed from a car sunroof take this place from experimental to exemplary. But it was quite a challenge to build, according to Knowhow Shop. The studio had to rethink — if not completely wipe clean — their old ways and approach the project in an entirely different light.

“Our intent was to build this project entirely by ourselves from ground up, not only due to financial constraints but as a proof of concept for a contemporary micro-building.” This is, however, a project they wouldn’t have been able to simply hand off to a contractor then call it a day.

“So we bypassed the normal methods of architectural production, and relied on the most experimental potential of our design/build model.”

The result, as you can clearly see above, is an office space that allows light in just as much as it wields it, showing us an exciting new possibility in contemporary architecture.

Photos courtesy of Knowhow Shop