Product-Architecture Lab collaborates to win Museum of Modern Art/P.S. 1 Competition
HOBOKEN, N.J. ― The Museum of Modern Art and the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center announced that the Los Angeles-based firm Ball-Nogues, led by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, in collaboration with The Product-Architecture Lab at Stevens Institute of Technology, are the winners in the eighth annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program.
The competition invites emerging architects to propose an installation for the courtyard of P.S.1 in Long Island City , Queens . The objective of the Young Architects Program is to identify and provide an outlet for emerging young talent in architecture, an ongoing mission of both MoMA and P.S.1. This year, five finalists selected by a closed nomination process were asked to present designs for an installation at P.S.1 with the allotted project budget of $70,000.
The winning installation, Liquid Sky, designed by Ball-Nogues in collaboration with Paul Endres of Endres Ware Architects/Engineers and Mark Pollock, Cory Brugger, and Erik Verboon of the Product Architecture Lab at Stevens Institute of Technology, will be on view in the P.S.1 courtyard beginning June 21, 2007
“Needless to say, we are proud and excited for these three young men and look forward to the work needed to get the installation ready for June,” said Professor John Nastasi, who directs the Product-Architecture Lab at Stevens.
“We're very excited about winning P.S. 1,” said Benjamin Ball. “Gaston and I are thrilled to be working with Mark, Erik and Cory on the project. We could not have built the confidence to tackle a project like this without their help, especially the parametric modeling aspect of the project, which would be unfeasible without their automation of the process. Having had some experience with recent architecture/design school grads, I can say that you have put them on the right track in The Product-Architecture Lab at Stevens. They are miles ahead of their competition from other schools.”
Liquid Sky will immerse the viewer in kaleidoscopic patterns of color created by sunlight filtering through an array of translucent, tinted Mylar petals that resemble blossoming flowers of stained glass. Together, the petals form a tensioned surface that reconfigures the horizon, cresting above the walls of the P.S.1 courtyard. Six towers constructed from untreated utility poles support the surface while providing discrete spaces at their base for relaxing on enormous community hammocks made of brightly colored netting.
For the adjacent outdoor gallery, the team has designed the Droopscape, a slack catenary belly that shifts and flows in the wind, supported by drench towers that periodically soak visitors below with their gravity-induced tip buckets. As in past years, the project will serve as the venue for Warm Up, the popular music series held annually in P.S.1’s courtyard.
In addition to Ball-Nogues, the five finalists are Gage/Clemenceau Architects ( New York ), IwamotoScott ( San Francisco ), Mos ( Brooklyn ), and Ruy Klein ( New York ). The designs will be presented in an exhibition in MoMA’s Louise Reinhardt Smith Gallery, from June 27 to September 8.
“Ball-Nogues’s exuberant project, Liquid Sky, combines the zest of a joyful event space with rigorous research into new materials and digital fabrication,” said Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art. “Low-tech assembly is joined with experiment in the latest cutting and fabrication techniques gleaned from the sailing industry. They posit a project whose research will hold resonance and application long after this summer's Warm Up series. Liquid Sky is a rich palette of atmospheric effects and brilliant color with an undertone of the ephemeral circus spectacle.”
For more information about the Product-Archtecture Lab at Stevens, please visit www.productarchitecturelab.com
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
For the latest news about Stevens, please visit StevensNewsService.com.