The Museum of Modern Art has kicked off the popular Warm Up Summer Music series in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 with the grand opening of Party Wall. The towering installation, designed by Ithaca-based studio CODA, was the winning proposal of the 14th annual Young Architects Program in which provides emerging architects a chance to construct an innovative project as long as shades, cools and seats visitors.
With a porous skin made of woven skateboard scraps, the experimental structure has successfully met the challenge by providing a shaded refuge for the crowds with refreshing cooling stations and detachable wooden seats.
See Party Wall in action after the break...
“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.”
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. The wall acts as an aqueduct by carrying a stream of water along the top of the structure before it is ejected from the structure, via a pressure-tank, into a fountain that feeds a misting station and a series of pools.
For more photos of the Party Wall see Zachary Tyler Newton's Flickr page.
Also, check out our exclusive interview with CODA principal Caroline O’Donnell regarding the Party Wall here.
Previous winners include HWKN's Wendy (2012), Interboro Partners' Holding Pattern (2011), SO-IL's Pole Dance (2010), MOS Architects' Afterparty (2009) and Work AC's PF1 (2008).
