The temporary MoMA PS1 outdoor installations are expected to provide shade, seating, and water, and designs are judged based on their creative attention to sustainability, recycling, and space and material management. YAP jurors picked the project submitted by HWKN (Matthias Hollwich and Marc Kushner from New York) out of five talented finalists, and it’s easy to see why.
Wendy, opening at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City in late June, tests the boundaries of architecture and only finds limits in shade, win, rain, music, and visual identity. The pavilion is covered in nylon fabric treated with a groundbreaking titania nano particle spray that actually neutralizes polluting airborne particles. In addition to its unique air-scrubbing material, Wendy features spiky arms that spray water and push out blasts of cool air and water mists that will take the edge off New York’s hot and humid summers.
“HollwichKushner’s proposal for YAP 2012 is sure to make a memorable impression over the summer at MoMA PS1,” said Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “It is iconic, but with a twist. By combining off-the-shelf materials and scaffolding systems with the latest cry in nanotechnology it is able to produce both an out-of-the-box ecological statement and a bold architectural gesture. It is economical and terse in terms of its design, and yet, through its positioning and scale, it also smartly projects different possibilities for use and social appropriation across the entire site where it sits—including the ability to reach out for those outside the museum’s walls.”
Wendy doesn’t only establish a space, it generates an experimental, ecologically-sound environment bound to inspire one of the world’s most creative cities. And that’s what MoMA PS1 is all about.
+ HWKN
+ MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program
all renderings © HWKN
