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MoMA PS1 Unveils "Party Wall" For This Summer's Warm Up Parties
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 17, 2013
Modified Jan 17, 2013
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 17, 2013
Modified Jan 17, 2013
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MoMA PS1 announced today the winner of its annual Young Architects Program, which selects an emerging architect and design team to take over the spacious courtyard during the summer. This year's winner, CODA, will use reclaimed wood—the "waste products of skateboard-making"—to create a large-scale "flexible experimental space" for the outdoor Warm Up summer music series.
Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design, says CODA's design will "make an impactful and poetic architectural statement within MoMA PS1′s courtyard." All design submissions are required to create shade, seating, and water, while also "addressing environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling." (Last year's installation used nanoparticles to clean the air, or something.) According to PS 1's announcement, CODA's design has a lot of different elements:
The porous façade is affixed to a tall self-supporting steel frame that is balanced in place with large fabric containers filled with water, and clad with a screen of interlocking wooden elements donated by Comet, an Ithaca-based manufacturer of eco-friendly skateboards.
The lower portion of the Party Wall’s façade is capable of shedding its “exterior,” as 120 panels can be detached from the structure and used as benches and communal tables during Warm Up and other diverse events and programs such as lectures, classes, performances, and film screenings.
A shallow stage of reclaimed wood weaves around Party Wall’s base to create a series of micro-stages for performances of varying types and scales. At various locations under the structure, pools of water serve as refreshing cooling stations that can also be covered to provide additional staging space or a shaded area from the direct sunlight.
Party Wall’s steel-angle structure is ballasted by water-filled “pillows” made of polyester base fabric that will be lit at night to produce a luminous effect. Party Wall acts as an aqueduct by carrying a stream of water along the top of the structure. The water is projected from the structure, via a pressure-tank, into a fountain that feeds a misting station and a series of pools.
Party Wall will make its debut in late June. If you build it, Atoms for Peace will come? Here's a look back at some of the previous designs.
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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