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This Japanese architect is trying to create the world's first 'invisible' trains

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A concept illustration of Kazuyo Sejima's train. Sanaa

Japan's bullet trains zoom by at 360 mph — so fast you can hardly see them.

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Seibu Railway Co. and Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima want to take it even further, building seven trains that are nearly invisible to the naked eye.

In reality, the trains won't actually be invisible — they'll just be so reflective they blend into their surroundings, Sejima said in a statement. 

Sejima, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect who heads the Tokyo-based firm Sanaa, says the design can apply to any existing train. She will first redesign Seibu Railway's Red Arrow express commuter trains that travel a 110-mile line in Japan. The company will build seven trains with eight cars each, totaling 56 train cars.

This is Sejima's first foray into train design. There's really not much difference between a building and a train — just that the latter can travel from "the mountains of Chichibu to the middle of Tokyo," she said.

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The architect is known for creating buildings that blend into the environment, so it makes sense for her to apply that aesthetic to Seibu's trains. Just take a look at her design below for Le Louvre Lens Museum in France, made with shiny reflective metals.

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Kazuyo Sejima's Le Louvre Lens Museum in France. Reuters/Pascal Rossignol

Scientists have been trying to create an invisible material for about a decade, but most of this technology can only evade radar detection — not the naked human eye. To design a material completely invisible to the eye would require more advances in nanomaterials, researchers say.

If Sejima is successful, hopefully her team will also install a way to alert oblivious bystanders when the train is hurtling toward them.

The trains debut in 2018.

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