COCOON
Location: Black Rock City, NevadaTeam (a-z) : Wanjiao Chen, Jiageng Guo, Yuxuan Tu, Xinyi Xie.
Status: Burning Man 2027 Temple Proposal
COCOON is a temporary wooden Temple proposed for Burning Man 2027, formed by two structurally independent systems: a hard outer frame and a protected inner chamber. The outer frame is a repeated bamboo casing — open, exposed, and rigid — representing the pressures, routines, and constraints that shape daily life. Within it sits a softer wooden body, built from horizontal layers, holding what is often kept inside: grief, memory, tenderness, contradiction, belonging, and release.
The project unfolds as a slow passage inward. The outer frame creates a public edge where participants can gather, pause, park bikes, and move gradually from the open playa toward the Temple. A long, low threshold compresses the body before opening into the Great Hall: a warm shared interior with benches, alcoves, niches, and writable surfaces for offerings. A skylight opens the chamber to the desert sky, while a west-facing circular aperture captures the setting sun, creating a quiet moment of peace and release at dusk.
At night, COCOON glows softly through the seams of its horizontal wooden layers, like something alive inside a shell. During the burn, the outer casing is intended to disappear first, briefly revealing the inner body before the entire Temple becomes light, ash, and memory. COCOON is a place to live with contradictions — protection and exposure, grief and celebration, solitude and gathering, structure and transformation.