We pick the old city district in Beijing as our project site, aiming to produce a unique scheme to re-think and re-define the process of preservation.  We believe preservation and construction are twin phenomena that promote mutually, by using certain architecture language you can suddenly engage people in some atmosphere that is fresh although they used to live in it every day but without realizing it. The space becomes more tangible and dynamic to invite people in instead of asking them to look at it from outside.

The area is filled with traditional low-density houses with hutongs and yards between them, and a river flows through in the middle of the site. We propose to integrate those public space pieces on ground level into a large landscape on top of the area. This is the result of negotiation between the old and new, and it is neither ruin nor restoration but establishing a new order and configuration to adapt to the new life style and requirement. We set up a perimeter fabric structure system with multiple function layers of circulation and irrigation integrated in it. To take advantage of the river and serve for air ventilation and purification, waterfalls are set as part of the landscape to bring fresh air down to the lower level. So the basic idea is to have clear two layers of spatial definition on the site: structure and transportation on the outside, which is hard and artificial, and waterfall inside, which is soft and natural. The floating park not only provide residents with a new broad public space for activity, and help to purify the air in old city area, but also provide a new perspective to observe and understand the old city space formation and context.