London’s invisible house covered in mirrors

3 min read

1 year ago Pavel

An unusual but unique house in London’s Richmond neighborhood has been dubbed “the invisible house” because the giant mirror walls reflect everything around it, making it very hard to notice.

Located on the busy A316 road by the Richmond Circus roundabout, near eponymous Underground station, the building isn’t some fancy art installation, but an real home.
Redesigned by architect and artist Alex Haw in 2015, the property has been inhabited since 2019, and the family said that living there has been interesting, to say the least.
Even though passers-by can’t see inside, the owners can see outside perfectly, and they sometimes spot people fixing their hair or clothes in their mirrored walls and windows.

“Our designer, Alex Haw, came up with the idea of the mirror,” the owners, who preferred to remain anonymous, told in an interview “The mirror would make the house ‘talk with its environment’. You can see the trees on the roundabout and the clouds reflecting onto the house. We really liked the idea and ran with it.”

Either way the so-called invisible house left people with lot of unanswered questions, with some who wondered how much time and effort the owners put into keeping the mirrors squeaky clean all the time, and others wondered how they could have passed by the building dozens of times and not even realized it was there.

“I’ve lived in the borough for about 10 years and have driven past it more times than I could count and have honestly never noticed it,” one said. “Does anyone know anything about it? Is it residential or commercial? I’ve tried googling it and can’t find any info about it.”
Another said: “Trying to work out if I can take selfies in this or if the owners inside can see me doing it.”
While few users come up with other problems, it “must be a right pain to keep clean, as it would be attracting a lot of birds.”

Even checking out the property on Google Maps is an intriguing experience, as it’s difficult to make out the exact design, with everything being reflected.
And I am curious about the material used to make the house invisible. Some have suggested semi-transparent glass, but I don’t know…