My Hair is at MoMA PS1 / TempAgency: Kutonotuk & mcdowellespinosa

Posted on febrero 9, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

“My Hair is at MoMA PS1″ is exactly what it sounds like. TempAgency, composed of architecture firms Kutonotuk and mcdowellespinosa, has designed an installation that uses human hair from hair salons and barbershops as architecture. The finalist for 2013 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program found inspiration in the material waste to develop a project of cultural and design significance. Join us after the break for more images.

According to TempAgency, “our hair is an element that links us, divides us, fascinates us, and traces our diversity as a process and relic of life and reflection of ourselves”, which makes the installation a project that is about everyone. With up to 4 cubic feet of hair waste produced daily by each NYC hair salon and barbershop, TempAgency has found the potential to develop the thermal, acoustic and structural qualities of architecture with the same material that is such a significant cultural element of character and identity. The project was developed in collaboration with material scientists, hair stylists, medical doctors and engineers to produce “spatial typologies of this living material”.

The curating and manufacturing processes come in four phases: hair collection, treatment, assembly and installation. TempAgency collected 80 cubic feet of hair from over 120 hair salons and barbershops. The hair was inspected, sanitized, dyed and bound in a customized weather-proof, fire-retardant silicone and affixed to a metal mesh on fiberglass poles. The variation of curation in these elements can be composed to create different environments for shade and seating. Each “hair roller” represents one of the 120 shops that donated hair, creating a taxonomy across the five boroughs. The landscape produced is a symbolic of cultural identity and a intimate reappropriation of our bodies in architecture. ”My Hair is at MoMA PS1 … is “ultimately an architectural expression of renewed life”.

TempAgency was not the only firm to develop a project out of reused materials. 2013 PS1 YAP Winner “Skateboard Scrap Party Wall” by CODA used leftover shreds of skateboard material to develop a porous wall installation for PS1′s courtyard.

For more, discover why 2013 YAP Istanbul Modern selected SO? Architecture and Ideas’ Sky Spotting Stop as its winner and Rome’s Young Architects Program at MAXXI chose bam!’s He.

Click here to view the embedded video.

My Hair is at MoMA PS1 / TempAgency: Kutonotuk & mcdowellespinosa originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 09 Feb 2013.

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CODA wins P.S.1 with Skateboard Scrap ‘Party Wall’

Posted on enero 17, 2013 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 has selected CODA’s (Caroline O’Donnell, Ithaca, NY) large-scale, self-supporting Party Wall, made from leftover shreds of skateboard material, as winner of the 2013 Young Architects Program (YAP). Drawn from five finalists, the porous skin of CODA’s temporary urban landscape will shade visitors of the Warm Up Summer Music series with its reclaimed woven screen, while providing water in refreshing cooling stations and seating with its detachable wooden skin on the lower half of the linear structure.

“CODA’s proposal was selected because of its clever identification and use of locally available resources – the waste products of skateboard-making – to make an impactful and poetic architectural statement within MoMA PS1′s courtyard,” said Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “Party Wall arches over the various available spaces, activating them for different purposes, while making evident that even the most unexpected materials can always be reinvented to originate architectural form and its ability to communicate with the public.”

Continue after the break for the complete project description.

As described by MoMA, 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.

“CODA developed an outstanding, iconic design that will support the many social functions connected to our large-scale group exhibition EXPO 1: New York, while creating a unique and stunning object for our outdoor galleries,” added Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at MoMA.

In case you missed it, be sure to check out last year’s blue nylon beauty, designed by New York-based HWKN, that graced the P.S.1 courtyard with her smog-eating, titania nanoparticle coated spikes during the 2012 Warm Up series.

News via MoMA, The Architects Newspaper

CODA wins P.S.1 with Skateboard Scrap ‘Party Wall’ originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 17 Jan 2013.

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MAXXI’s 2013 Young Architects Program Finalists

Posted on diciembre 13, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

The MAXXI Museum in Rome has announced the five young designers who will compete for the opportunity to design and build a space for live summer events in the large courtyard of the MoMA PS1 in NY, the MAXXI Plaza in Rome, and – for the first time – at Turkey’s Istanbul Modern.

Each of the finalist’s projects will also be displayed as exhibitions at the four institutions participating in the Young Architects Program (YAP): the MAXXI, the MoMA PS1, Constructo (a Chilean cultural institution), and Istanbul Modern.

The five finalists have until January 2013 to submit their proposals. The chosen project will be constructed and inaugurated in June.

More information of the five finalists, after the break…

bam! bottega di architettura metropolitana, Turin
Alberto Bottero, group leader; Valeria Bruni, Simona Della Rocca, Fabio Vignolo
A collective of young Turinese architects, educated at the Politecnico di Torino. Each has enriched his/her studies as part of exchange programs with other European schools, professional experiences abroad and graduate theses in the United States, India and Japan.

AKO architettura a kilometro zero, Rome
Gianni Puri, group leader; Laura Di Virgili; Alessandra Fasoli, Stefan Pollak, Enrica Siracusa
An international team experimenting with a mixture of teaching, research and professional practice. Educated in Rome with the objective of studying methods of collective design and environmentally sustainable building methods,
AK0 is a do-tank whose actions are anchored to reality and influenced by cultural and technological input from a global network.

LABORATORIO PERMANENTE, Milan
Angelica Sylos Labini, group leader; Nicola Russi
Founded in 2009, its members unite academic research with professional practice. The office focuses on the architectural performance of contemporary space considered the fundamentals of its design.

Matilde Cassani, Milano, Italia
A designer and researcher with the Politecnico di Milano. She moves along the margins between architecture, installation and performance. Her projects have been shown, among other places, at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, at the Bat Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism and the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

LOOP Landscape & Architecture Design, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Francesco Garofalo, group leader; Silvia Lupini, Francesca Sartori
Founded in Rotterdam in 2010, LOOP is a design office that, beginning with specific skills works to develop and operate as part of a network involving other professional structures, works in the fields of landscape design, public spaces and architecture.

Story and Office Descriptions via MAXXI

MAXXI's 2013 Young Architects Program Finalists originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 13 Dec 2012.

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2013 P.S.1 Shortlist

Posted on noviembre 8, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

MoMA P.S.1 has announced five finalists to compete in the 2013 Young Architects Program (YAP). Now in it’s 13th edition, the competition will challenge a group of emerging architects to design a temporary installation within the walls of the P.S.1 courtyard for MoMA’s annual summer “Warm-Up” series.

This year’s finalists are CODA from Ithaca, New York; Leong Leong Architects and Moorhead & Moorhead both from New York City; Temp Agency from Charlottesville, Virginia and Brooklyn; and French 2D, based in Boston and Syracuse, New York.

Over the years, the YAP competition has inspired a vast amount of innovative proposals. Just check out last year’s winner, Wendy! This blue nylon beauty, designed by New York-based HWKN, graced the P.S.1 courtyard with her smog-eating, titania nanoparticle coated spikes. Learn more about the 2012 YAP award winner here.

Best of luck to the 2013 finalists!

via The Architect’s Newspaper, MoMA P.S.1

2013 P.S.1 Shortlist originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 08 Nov 2012.

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“Rising Currents” In NYC

Posted on octubre 29, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Two years ago, MoMA mounted the critically acclaimed exhibition “Rising Currents,” which featured design schemes for how to combat rising sea levels due to climate change. With New Yorkers and others on the Eastern seaboard clenched today as Frankenstorm hurls toward us—and with water already creeping over banks (yikes)—we thought we’d take a look back at the prescient exhibition. If only some of these ideas had been implemented right away! Sure, they weren’t responses to a vicious hurricane, but they certainly couldn’t hurt in times like this. Read more.

“Rising Currents” was not your typical exhibition, particularly for an art museum. MoMA demarcated flood zones in the New York Harbor area and then asked interdisciplinary teams to devise concepts for how to mitigate escalating sea levels in those areas. The teams—comprising architects, engineers, and landscape designers—developed their concepts during an artists-in-residence program at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, MoMA’s affiliate in Queens. They were led by five architecture firms: Architecture Research Office, LTL Architects, nArchitects, Matthew Baird Architects, and SCAPE.

The teams dreamed up vastly different strategies for modifying the coastlines encircling the harbor, but per the exhibition brief, all of them were focused on creating “soft infrastructures” that were mindful of Mother Earth. Below is a look at their concepts, which were on view at MoMA from March to October 2010. They may seem far-fetched, but they certainly get one thinking about how to make a city more responsive to the forces of nature.

Visit MoMA’s Rising Currents site to learn more, or read the review in The New York Times. And for those in Hurricane Sandy’s path right now, be safe!

Architecture Research Office and dlandstudio proposed creating wetlands around the edges of Manhattan. They also suggested replacing asphalt streets with a perforated cast-concrete surface that could absorb rainwater.

The team led by LTL Architects proposed an “amphibious landscape continually activated by rising tides.”

nArchitects created a series of artificial islands with housing blocks.

Matthew Baird Architects proposed replacing an oil refinery in New Jersey with piers that would support bio-fuel and recycling factories.

SCAPE imagined creating an oyster farm in the (now-polluted) Gowanus Canal.

The exhibition in MoMA’s architecture and design gallery.

Urban Movement Design debuts UNIRE/UNITE at MAXXI

Posted on julio 31, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

UNIRE/UNITE © Cecilia Fiorenza

Urban Movement Design, winner of the 2012 Young Architects Program (YAP) MAXXI in Rome, has reinvented the MAXXI experience by engaging the mind and body with their interactive, summer installation. UNIRE/UNITE responds to the current public health crisis by offering an alternative solution to traditional urban furniture that choreographs exercise and play back into our daily lives. As our world struggles in crisis, Urban Movement Design believes it is imperative that we rethink the way we live and change the disabling, sedentary lifestyles that are currently promoted by our built environment.

The New York-based practice has merged the two disciplines of architecture and movement therapies in an effort to integrate health back into design and promote a greater sense of community. This project is a reflection of their philosophy. Continue after the break to learn more.

Urban Movement Design: “All of nature acts according to the law of interconnectedness, but humankind has moved away from this natural law and into an unnatural state of self-interest and isolation.”

Courtesy of Urban Movement Design

Located near the MAXXI piazza, UNIRE/UNITE is fully accessible and inclusive to all. A pathway of recycled rubber leads into an ergonomic seating structure made of CNC routed marine ply and upholstered with an innovative concrete canvas. A variety of body positions and yoga-inspired exercises are integrated into the design, creating the “Infinity System” that is meant to activate, strengthen, cleanse, and balance the mind and body. A series of QR codes are implemented throughout the installation that allow visitors to access information on how to preform these various movements with the help of their smartphone. Additionally, the experience is enhanced with vines and misters that offer shade and coolness during the warm summer days.

Although budget cuts forced Urban Movement Design to scale back their original plan, the essence of the project was preserved. In turn, this allowed them to leave a large amount of the MAXXI piazza open for play – an opportunity both children and adults have taken advantage of.

Rendering – Courtesy of Urban Movement Design

The words “UNIRE/UNITE” are inscribed on the cement ground to remind the visitors overlooking the piazza from the upper floors of the MAXXI the importance of unity.

Once the summer session concludes, UNIRE/UNITE will be dismantled and relocated throughout the streets of Rome in an attempt strengthen the relationship between MAXXI and the city. Until then, the installation will continue host Yoga lessons three days a week on its current MAXXI site.

UNIRE/UNITE © Cecilia Fiorenza

Design: Urban Movement Design: Sarah Gluck, Robyne Kassen, Simone Zbudil Bonatti
Collaborators: Anna Maria Zandara, Andrea Ribechini, Daniele Ludovisi, Marta Veltri, Azzurra Galanti, Vincenzo Gagliardi, Daniele Lampis, Emanuela Magnani, Eduardo Marques, Michael Caton, Ilana Judah, Kerim Eken, Ezra Ardolino, Annah Kassen

Keep up on the project and Urban Movement Design on their Facebook Page.

Urban Movement Design debuts UNIRE/UNITE at MAXXI originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 31 Jul 2012.

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Wendy Opens at MoMA PS1 / HWKN

Posted on junio 29, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

HWKN with Wendy © ArchDaily

Yesterday afternoon, inside the playground of MoMA PS 1, we met Wendy - HWKN’s temporary summer installation for the 2012 Young Architects Program. As an experiment in pushing the boundaries of what architecture can do in an urban environment, Wendy certainly makes an impression. Her blue spiky arms shoot passed the confines of PS 1′s courtyard walls, immediately attracting the attention and piquing the curiosity of those meandering along Jackson Street. Conceptualized as a storm, Wendy intends to challenge the public’s notion of what architecture should be, as the structure’s ecological function will actually clean the air. ”Wendy does not play the typical architecture game of ecological apology – instead she is pro-active,” explained HWKN.

More about Wendy after the break.

Wendy © ArchDaily

As we have shared previously, Wendy features an inexpensive construction system: repurposed scaffolding arranged in a 56′ by 56′ by 46′ volume in an effort to maximize the surface area for the stretched fabric. The bright blue nylon fabric extends from the core outward and culminates in arms that shoot mist, water, and music through the courtyard. The fabric, treated with titania nanoparticle spray, will neutralize airborne pollutants which will clean the air to an equivalent of taking 260 cars off the road during its short stay at PS 1.

Wendy © ArchDaily

HWKN first learned of titania nanofilm with its use in fashion, as some designers were creating pieces one could wear on the street to act as a filter. Plus, Richard Meier used the material in his Pilgrimage Church in Rome (HWKN assumed to keep the dust of Rome off his white facade); and Malmo, Sweden has used the material in sidewalks. However, this is the first time titania nanofilm will be applied on a textile, and it provides the foundation for a grand-scale urban experiment.

It was exciting, and surprising, to walk inside Wendy, as one simply overlooks the entry stair due to the dynamics of the large spiky arms. Once inside, the heart of Wendy is displayed as bright yellow fans move the air through the structure, pools of water collect on fabric, and mist gently cascades downward.

“Wendy’s boundary is defined by tools like shade, wind, rain, music, and visual identity to reach past the confines of physical limits. She crafts an environment – not just a space,” explained HWKN.

An exhibition featuring HWKN’s design will be shown in the MoMA this summer, alongside the four other finalists. The exhibition, curated by Pedro Gadanho will also include the winners and finalists of YAP MAXXI in Rome and YAP Chile in Santiago. Such an inclusive exhibition will show the range of architecture on the international scale and strengthen the global network of the YAP.

Be sure to head over to PS 1 to meet Wendy – she’ll be there from July 7 through September 8.

Wendy Opens at MoMA PS1 / HWKN originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 29 Jun 2012.

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2012 MoMA PS1 YAP Runner-Up: Virtual Water / UrbanLab + endrestudio + Method Design

Posted on febrero 19, 2012 by socializarq

Courtesy of UrbanLab

ArchDaily announced the winning proposal for the 2012 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program (YAP) earlier this month. In order to bring you full coverage of the annual competition, we are featuring the other four creative designs that competed against HWKN’s Wendy. Virtual Water, a collaborative design brought to you by UrbanLab, endrestudio and Method Design, formally manifests what is hidden in plain sight: RAIN. The project reveals and plays with thousands of gallons of summertime rainwater that would otherwise be discarded from the PS1 courtyard.

Virtual Water refers to water hidden in everyday products. A pair of jeans, for example, has a 3000 gallon Virtual Water footprint because 3000 gallons of water are consumed in the various steps of its production chain (growing the cotton, dyeing the fabric, etc).

Courtesy of UrbanLab

Urban spaces such as the PS1 courtyard also have Virtual Water footprints. Unlike a pair of jeans – which is the material embodiment of water-based processes – Virtual Water footprints of urban spaces are largely made up of immaterial water-based processes: rain. The adjective “virtual” refers to the fact that most of the water to produce a product or maintain an urban space is not ultimately visible in the product or space. This is especially true for urban spaces that are typically designed to defend against rain by diverting rainwater to the nearest underground sewer. Ideally in cities, despite its importance and usefulness, rainwater disappears as quickly as it arrives.

Courtesy of UrbanLab

The public courtyard of PS1 has a Virtual Water footprint of over 300,000 gallons of rainwater per year – over 100,000 gallons of rainwater during the summer. Our Virtual Water project collects, cleans, conserves and uses thousands of gallons of this summertime rain. After cleansing, rainwater flows between and over conical canopies to create six unique water-based atmospheres. The atmospheres include (1) a Stream or “Living Machine” that cleans collected rainwater with plants, and demonstrates how nature cleans water with minimal energy inputs; (2) a Waterfall Fish Pond that supplies critical nutrients to the plants in the Living Machine, and demonstrates relations between fish and their wetland environments to clean water; (3) a Splash Pool for visitors to play in shallow bio-filtered water; (4) an active Mist/Sprinkler environment that cools visitors in the summer; (5) a Drip Rain Puddle that creates a serene dripping sound during and after a rain storm; and (6) a Reflecting Pool Lounge that is a shaded gathering space and water storage fountain.

Courtesy of UrbanLab

The circulation of water cascading over the surface of six conical canopies, collecting in the basins below and shooting back up stands as a powerful analogy to the natural cycle of water. Virtual Water reveals through play and program how much fresh water is “hidden” in the PS1 courtyard. Virtual Water splashes, spatters, dances, foams, reflects, flows, drips, and sparkles day and night.

Courtesy of UrbanLab

Collaborators:

UrbanLab (Chicago): Sarah Dunn + Martin Felsen with Katherine Eberly, Jeff Macias, Andrew Akins, Lulu Alzaid, Simon Cygielski, Lorene Ford, Adrianne Joergensen, Travis Kalina, Jason Mould, Evgeniya Plotnikova, Noel Turgeon
endrestudio (Berkeley / Chicago): Paul Endres
Method Design (New York): Reese Campbell, Demetrios Comodromos, David Stasiuk