Ligzda  

 

The landscape surrounding Lake Pape is a fragile boarder between water and land in a seasonal state of flux.  Migrating birds use the habitat of lake’s edge for rest, shelter and a source of food making it an ideal location to observe migrating/ local fauna and flora.

 

Ligzda or nest, emerges from the water reed in an abstraction of the hayricks that dot Latvia during the summer harvest. Balanced on an inner core and outer framework of natural log poles, felled from the surrounding forest, the tower hovers over the ground plane allowing for seasonal flooding. Bracing the inner and outer frame work is a stair and observation platform of galvanized perforated metal plate, allowing air, moisture and light to penetrate to the ground plane. A spiraling lath of limbs from the log structure provides the substrate for the thatch skin. Harvested from the shores of Lake Pape, the reed sheafs cloak the structure, masking the watchers from the birds.