red balloons lift flowing fabric into a wedding playground by suki+partners in china

suki+partners transforms a wedding lawn into a ‘playground’

At the Canal Sanwan Hotel in Yangzhou, China, Suki+Partners conceives and shapes Playground, an interactive outdoor installation created for a wedding celebration. Set across a vast 2,640-square-meter lawn, the project introduces a spatial experience to the single-day event that invites guests to step into a temporary landscape of play. Through lightweight construction and minimal intervention, the installation transforms the open field into a flexible environment for ceremony, conversation, and rest.

Large red balloons pull the pale pink fabric upward at key corners, while the material naturally drapes back down toward the ground. The upper surface of the cloth becomes a platform for the wedding ceremony, performances, and informal gatherings, while the shaded area below offers a place for cooling and rest. Supported by columns and open on both sides, the lower space allows natural ventilation. Cooling systems and seating are installed beneath the fabric, providing relief from the summer heat and creating a comfortable refuge after time spent on the lawn.

all images courtesy of Suki+Partners

lifting the lawn into three dimensions

Working with the expansive flatness of the site, the designers approached the lawn as a surface that could be gently lifted to produce space. ‘When a plane is lifted at one corner, a three-dimensional form unfolds,’ the Chinese team at Suki+Partners explains. Following this logic, the fabric is raised at several points across the grass, creating a series of undulating surfaces. The cloth shifts from a two-dimensional plane into sculptural folds and creases.

The installation is designed not only for the guests but also for the surrounding environment. As wind moves across the site, the suspended fabric shifts and rises around the red balloons, producing an ever-changing spatial atmosphere. The structure responds to natural forces, turning the lawn into a dynamic setting where architecture, weather, and human activity overlap.

The designers describe it as a space formed through interaction, conversation, and shared experience. ‘What makes up a ‘playground’? It is the clothes glowing orange in the sunset, the refreshing bubbles of water on a hot summer day, the white bridge glimpsed from the shady space beneath the draped fabric. The wind weaves in and out of the cloth — part of us trying to catch it, part of us hoping to be lifted by it. Children run and tumble… The playground is always like a sponge, absorbing the ever-flowing tide of our memories and swelling with them.’ Within this temporary setting, the wedding ceremony becomes a collective moment of exploration and imagination.

Suki+Partners conceives and shapes Playground, an interactive outdoor installation in China