The Floating Courtyard - Underground Entrance Plaza Renovation / Deep Origin Lab

Architects: Deep Origin Lab
Area: 780 m²
Year: 2023
Photographs: Hao Chen, Dong Image, Qinrong Liu
Lead Architects: Qinrong Liu
Construction: Shanghai Biaoding Hejia Technology Co., Ltd.
Structure Design: 广州瑞华建筑设计有限公司、上海标定合嘉科技有限公司
Developer: Suzhou Science and Technology City Kexin Cultural Tourism Development Co., Ltd.
Client: 爱城市智库（深圳）有限公司
City: Su Zhou Shi
Country: China

The Floating Courtyard, designed by Deep Origin Lab, is a major renovation project situated in the Science and Technology City of Suzhou Huqiu District. This transformation of the entrance plaza to the underground parking lot at Fashion Waterfront Longfor Starry Street reimagines the public space, merging contemporary design with functional utility. The project features a translucent fabric membrane structure and a suspended landscape garden, creating an engaging and visually dynamic space.

The floating courtyard - underground entrance plaza renovation / deep origin lab

The Floating Courtyard is located in the Science and Technology City of Suzhou Huqiu District. This renovation of the entrance plaza to the underground parking lot is a significant enhancement to the public space system of Fashion Waterfront Longfor Starry Street. Deep Origin Lab oversaw the entire process from design to construction. The olive-shaped spatial form of the original sunken plaza established the basic geometry and axial conditions for the site. The design retains openness while reshaping the interface landscape from bottom to top through “Contexture” and “Patch,” creating an experiential place that bridges the spatial relationship with the urban environment.

The design extends the existing stairway. The open interface between the parking lot and the plaza is divided into three doorways to meet fire compartment requirements. The floating courtyard includes a translucent fabric membrane structure suspended above, resembling a jellyfish, with a suspended landscape garden below.

The membrane acts as a canopy for the plaza, creating an embracing field and a view of the sky. It also guides the flow and connects several outdoor main nodes. Steel columns are based on extensions of the original concrete columns, with the membrane structure balanced through suspension and support, minimizing the need for additional structures in the plaza.

As a patch repair method, the landscape garden merges the plaza space into a cohesive surface layer, linking the upper and lower levels into a continuous landscape form. Planting beds are scattered randomly, creating distinct gardens and various figure-ground relationships. Geometric shapes of windows and cave-like structures in different combinations form a series of unified and picturesque garden scenes. Railings define activity areas and paving materials, becoming integral parts of the composition and interacting with people’s movements.

The facade, featuring wood-textured translucent glass and illuminated edges, gives the rustic terrazzo surface the appearance of a thin shell lifted from the ground when viewed in the evening. Coordinated lighting from projectors in the planting beds and column-mounted lights transform the membrane structure’s surface into a light receptor. This immersive and interactive artistic lighting environment softens the materiality, transforming the underground entrance plaza into a spectacular stage after sunset.