Using the landscape of the Museum as a test site, the V&A invited nineteen architects to submit proposals for structures that examine notions of refuge and retreat. Responding to specific locations in the Museum, the architects explored themes such as study, work, play, performance and contemplation. Seven of the proposals were then selected for construction at full-scale.

These projects promoted an attitude to architecture where to 'dwell' meant something more than simply to find shelter. Each building invited the participation of the viewer. These immersive environments reawakened people's ability to inhabit architectural space on both a physical and an emotional level.

This structure creates a space where notions of ‘inside and outside’ and ‘nature and artificiality’ are inverted and convergent; it explores the crucial duality and ‘in-between-ness’ that defines traditional Japanese architecture. The interior surface of the hollow, transparent tree is continuous with the exterior of the cube form that surrounds it. Thus, one can stand outside the cube and inhabit the same space as the tree’s interior, and vice versa.