Bamboo Cabin Shaped Like a Rice Dumpling Celebrates Taiwan’s Culinary Heritage

Bamboo Cabin Plan: Sticky Rice Dumpling by Taiwanese artist Cheng Tsung Feng

Photo: FIXER Photographic Studio

In Taiwan, zongzi are the height of comfort food. They’re petite, gelatinous rice dumplings meticulously wrapped in bamboo leaves, packed with everything from sweet pastes to savory pork. But beyond that, they also happen to be the inspiration behind Cheng Tsung Feng’s newest project, hidden beside a bamboo forest hiking trail in Nantou, Taiwan.

Designed for this year’s Nantou Bamboo Dream Festival, Feng’s Bamboo Cabin Plan: Sticky Rice Dumpling is an exercise in gestural architecture. As its name suggests, the cabin resembles a zongzi, with two walls that run parallel to one another before eventually curving into a pointed apex. This flowing shape mirrors the act of wrapping zongzi, where the stalks bend like the fingers of a cupped hand preparing to roll and fill a dumpling.

The cabin’s form isn’t the only thing that echoes zongzi. The entire structure is built primarily out of bamboo, creating a clear link not only to the bamboo leaves that coat zongzi but to the landscape around it. With its open-weave walls and airy layout, the cabin seamlessly blends into the bamboo grove around it, dissolving the boundary between built and natural environments. Inside Sticky Rice Dumpling, a gentle breeze or a ray of light can filter through with ease, encouraging visitors to indulge in a moment of rest and reflection as they traverse the surrounding forest.

At night, the cabin transforms into a warm, cozy retreat, thanks in part to the amber-colored panels installed on its roof. These panels boast a textured surface specially designed to diffuse natural light, resulting in an oily glow that, to Feng, is also reminiscent of glutinous rice. It’s clear that Feng has meticulously crafted the cabin’s every detail in service of its overall theme, celebrating Taiwan’s culinary culture without sacrificing the bamboo grove’s serenity.

“Starting from the idea of food wrapping, the Bamboo Cabin invites people to step into a giant Sticky Rice Dumpling,” the artist explains, “as if being held within palms and bamboo leaves, embraced by food culture, tasty memory and natural material.”

Craftsmanship may be at the heart of Sticky Rice Dumpling, but it also informs nearly every aspect of Feng’s artistic practice. For years, the artist has focused on Taiwan’s historic craft culture, closely collaborating with and learning from master craftsmen across the country’s different regions. This rigorous study, appreciation, and ultimate reimagining of vernacular craft translates into innovative projects like Blueberry Theater, which consists of traditional fabrics that have been dyed with discarded blueberries from a local Taiwanese business.

“[Feng’s] works are not only beautiful, but also storytellers of traditional culture and handmade memories,” the artist’s biography reads. “He shares the gradually forgotten stories through his works, allowing these precious memories to be passed down in modern times.”

To learn more about the artist and Bamboo Cabin Plan: Sticky Rice Dumpling, visit Cheng Tsung Feng’s website.