Listen to Nature With These Gigantic Wooden Megaphones

If you’ve ever enjoyed a quiet walk in the forest, you may have noticed that nature isn’t actually all that quiet. Thousands of animals and plants create a constant, tranquil background noise that is basically the soundtrack of nature.

Interior architecture student Birgit Õigus wanted to amplify the sounds in Estonia’s forests, so her and a group of her classmates built megaphones deep in the woods. The custom king-sized wooden installation is free for hikers and nature lovers. The location and angle at which the students placed the acoustics wasn’t an afterthought; listeners can hear a special sound in the middle of the installation made up from noises from three directions.

Part building, part furniture, part recreational furniture, the installation is meant to focus the listener’s attention on the smallest acoustic details of the site that might usually go unnoticed — rainfall, branches rubbing on each other in the wind, distant footsteps, or thunder.

Visitors can also use the megaphones as a resting place, or a stage. The megaphones have been up since 2015 and have been used by hundreds of nature lovers as the perfect place to contemplate and listen to the calming sounds of mother earth.