We turn the volume up on our speakers when we want to hear our favorite music played louder. But what if you want to hear nature much louder? A group of students figured out a way to do just that by installing these giant megaphones in the middle of an Eastern European forest park.
Built by interior architecture students from the Estonian Academy of Arts, it’s a trio of supersized wooden megaphones set up in a section of the Pähni Nature Centre. Sit inside the hollowed interior and you can hear the amplified sounds of the natural world, from leaves rustling to birds chirping to some dude hiding in the corner thinking he can let out gas in secret. Yeah, wrong position, dude.
Aside from adding unique amplification to ambient sounds, the 10-foot nonagon-shaped structures are also designed to serve as temporary shelters where hikers can take a breather out of the sun. We’re not certain, but we have a feeling any noise you make inside is going to sound amplified as well, so you might be able to use it to make your smartphone’s tinny-sounding speakers sound halfway decent, making it an ideal spot for folks who want to take a break from nature and drown in some EDM tracks from their music library instead. Yes, it defeats the purpose, but we bet someone’s already done it anyway.
All three megaphones were constructed by a group of nine students who built it out of the university workshop. Upon completion, each one was transported by truck to their current and, likely, permanent location.