giant "floating" towers made from vegetables coming to MoMA PS1 this summer ++ upcoming Sunday Sessions
by Wyatt Marshall
Design mock-up of MoMA PS1 organic towers
Every year MoMA and MoMA PS1 pick a young architect to build a project conceived for the MoMA PS1 courtyard in a competition called the Young Architects Program. If you’ve been to a MoMA PS1 show, you’ve seen the work of past winners–last year, a big lattice work structure featured prominently in the outdoor space, and the year before that that enormous blue spiky thing won. This year, the winning entrant was David Benjamin of NY-based design firm The Living who designed a series of three-story tall circular structures, made from agricultural byproduct and mushroom (apparently it acts as glue) bricks, that look like a trio of weirdly organic nuclear cooling towers. Maybe not so weird, it’s actually based on them (science!) and will serve a cooling purpose, drawing cold air in at the bottom of the towers and pushing hot air up through the tops. The structure is completely biodegradable, and the entire construction-degradation life cycle of the structure boasts near-zero carbon emissions. It will grow as the summer goes on and, due to interspersed mirrors, the structure will appear to float. There’s also a little pool near the base of the structure. Read more about the structure at dezeen. The structure will be up in June in time for the 2014 Warm-Up series.
While we wait for things to actually warm up, MoMA PS1 has it’s indoor Sunday Sessions. The Genesis P Bryer-Orridge book launch with Psychic TV was this past Sunday (2/9) and coming up this Sunday (2/16) is “Where are the Arabs?” which is a short film series that “presents a range of artistic responses to the different socioeconomic and political situations throughout Arab cities today.” That goes from noon to 6 PM and tickets are on sale now.
Then Sunday, February 23 is something called “K-HOLE and Janus present TIME ZONE” that promises a program of “insomnia and nightlife” as well as “discomfort, Total Freedom, agoraphobia & amateurism.” More info on what that means and tickets is here.
