"The Floating House" is an experimental art installation by Drawing Architecture Studio, which uses cardboard and tape to proportionally reproduce old houses and residential buildings in Suzhou. Unlike traditional brick buildings, paper houses cannot stand on the ground due to their fragility, so the installation is suspended in the air, presenting a twisted and deformed state. The contrast between this soft appearance and the general architectural form is actually closer to the texture of daily residential buildings that have been used for a long time and heavily in reality.
Within the crafting journey of this installation, the paper pieces are gradually spliced into the structure of the building using tape, and suspended by the force of suspension rods and ropes. This process, where a collection of precise, miniature actions gives rise to an unforeseeably harmonious entity, echoes the grassroots ethos of indigenous construction methods. The work not only portrays the fragile vitality of old houses, but also metaphorically represents the alienation of cities from history in the process of modernization, triggering viewers' thoughts on urbanization, spatial production, and social memory.
