I thought Team Bondi’s painstaking recreation of 50’s LA was impressive, but Ana Serrano’s has taken the crown. The piece, entitled Salon of Beauty and currently installed at the Rice Gallery in Houston, is a replica city block made entirely out of cardboard.

While cardboard provides a practical and economic way to produce Serrano’s vision, the medium also captures the ephemerality of these neighborhoods, where no structure is permanent and a real-life stucco box could disappear at a developer’s whim. Her previous work, Cartonlandia, used cardboard boxes to create a dense, rambling hilltop community. “I like that cardboard is accessible and not a formal art making material,” says Serrano.

Check out more photos of the piece here.

– Filipe Salgado