High and Dry
Sleeping in a Boat on a London Roof

They say there’s a time and a place for everything.

Well, for sleeping in a houseboat that’s secretly an art project, we just found the time (next January) and the place (a rooftop in the middle of London). We can explain...

Introducing A Room for London: Roi des Belges, an art installation that’s also a temporary single-bedroom houseboat perched atop Southbank Centre in London, accepting reservations starting this Thursday for a January 2012 debut.

This is straight out of Gulliver’s Travels—it’s as if a real-life giant plucked a wooden boat from the harbor and put it on the edge of a roof. Just for fun.

The sole purpose of this piece—commissioned by an artist and a major British design outfit—is to give two people a room in a visible place, outdoors, in the city. Oh, and to give you somewhere to stay during next year’s Olympiad.

Once the big day comes, you’ll ascend the roof of Queen Elizabeth Hall and spend a single night in a simple wooden berth, far above the Thames. What you do after that is up to you. Your only obligation: to participate in the interactive art portion of the whole thing by recording all your experiences in the ship’s logbook.

After all, you and your date just invented a new Olympic sport.