Floating Ribbon.
Wuhan, China
- Awards
- Finalist Mention - Movable Chair International Design Competition
What makes a green space a place to stay?
The community study found abundant planting but few opportunities to spend time among it. Floating Ribbon reimagines scattered seats as a continuous spatial edge: a place to rest, meet, explore, or withdraw. Working around existing trees, the proposal brings different kinds of public life into a small landscape in Wuhan.
The model follows a continuous line through the planting. Changes in height and curvature make room for both individual pauses and shared activity.
Let the landscape set the route.
The selected site lies in a densely planted part of the community. A diagonal opening through the vegetation suggests the main route, while three existing trees become anchors for the design. The ribbon follows and extends that movement, introducing a secondary path for exploration. Its curves frame places beside the trees rather than treating the greenery as a backdrop viewed from outside.
The plan locates the curves in relation to the planting. Openings between them connect the main passage with smaller places to enter and occupy.
The study model isolates the continuous strip. Its changing direction establishes pockets of enclosure while leaving routes through the landscape.
The overhead view develops the strip into a series of places. The curves gather activity at different scales within the same landscape.
A seat can be the beginning of a shared space.
One ribbon. Different degrees of company.
The proposal combines an open resting area, a more secluded retreat, and a small outdoor theatre. A children's path adds a way to explore between them. Changes in the ribbon's height and profile distinguish these settings: some edges invite people to gather, while others give a person a quieter place to sit. The section brings those differences back to the scale of the body.
Figures make the differences in height legible. The ribbon moves between low, open edges and taller surrounds, offering a range of relationships to nearby activity.
The model brings the spaces closer: a passage, a sheltered edge, and an opening toward another person. These small relationships give the continuous form its everyday purpose.
Give the continuous line a material rhythm.
The models translate the solid strip into a sequence of slender elements. Their repetition gives the edge a rhythm, allowing views through it while preserving the curve. A connection study looks more closely at how the curved member meets a support. It shifts the project from the gesture of a line toward the question of how its parts could come together.
The exposed plates and fasteners make the proposed connection readable. This is a study of assembly within the design process.
Trees / Routes / Places to stay
Make room to spend time among the trees.
Floating Ribbon turns an edge into a sequence of invitations: to sit, follow a path, join others, or find a quieter place. A continuous form holds these different ways of inhabiting the landscape together.
Back to the beginning ↑- Location
- Wuhan, China
- Studio
- HUST Studio project
- Instructor
- Lei Peng
- Collaboration
- Ruoxi Li
- Recognition
- Finalist Mention - Movable Chair International Design Competition