by Treve Ring | You don’t need Google Translate to decipher the Refugio de Camping designs from IT MET Estudio, an architecture and design firm based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I, for one, would camp a helluva lot more often if my campsite featured a greenhouse and beer taps.

This 18-by-8.5 foot pop-up pop up refuge/party is designed to fold and open itself, the translucent façade (sinusoidal polycarbonate sheets, in case you were wondering) filtering in daylight and producing a lit-from-within lantern effect in darkness. Thin white metal bones and guatambu hardwood paneling can easily be disassembled, transported and reassembled as a puzzle, each part designed in order to be moved and built by anyone, anywhere.

In Buenos Aires’ hip Recoleta district, the first Refugio de Camping is perched on an urban rooftop, fully embracing the culture of alfresco drinking, transient and translucent. It doesn’t take much to imagine fitting in just about anywhere in Vancouver.

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