Installations: The Latest Architecture and News

Mexico City-based Escobedo Soliz Studio has been named the winner of MoMA and MoMA PS1's annual Young Architects Program (YAP) in New York - now in its 17th edition. Selected over four other finalists, the winning project, Weaving the Courtyard is “neither an object nor a sculpture standing in the courtyard, but a series of simple, powerful actions that generate new and different atmospheres," says the architect. It will serve as a "temporary urban landscape" for the 2016 Warm Up summer music series in MoMA PS1’s outdoor courtyard.

"Weaving the Courtyard is a site-specific architectural intervention using the courtyard’s concrete walls to generate both sky and landscape, with embankments in which platforms of soil and water suggest the appearance of a unique topography," says MoMA.

For the first time in history, a John Hejduk structure has been permanently installed in a public space. The American architect's Jan Palach Memorial has officially opened last week at Jan Palach Square (formerly Red Army Square) on the Alšovo Riverbank in Prague after 25 years in the making.

"The work, entitled House of the Suicide and House of the Mother of the Suicide, which was originally built in Atlanta in 1990, then Prague in 1991, honors the Czech dissident Jan Palach, whose self-immolation in protest of the Soviet invasion of 1968 served as a galvanizing force against the communist government in Czechoslovakia. A plaque at the base of the monument displays the poem The Funeral of Jan Palach, by former School of Architecture Professor David Shapiro," says The Cooper Union.

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Over a four day period during the New Generations Festival, curators Edouard Cabay (Appareil, ES) and Margherita Del Grosso (MaDGStudio, IT) led an experimental workshop within a shipyard at the Historical Center of Genoa that resulted in a "Bent" installation inspired by navel construction.

"By bending wood into an (in)habitable structure reminiscent of naval craft, a dialogue was created between the medieval urban fabric of Genoa and its tradition as maritime city," says the curators. "Although is still at the heart of the city's economy, its industry has been relegated to the margins of Genoa, generating conflict and ambiguity between the shore and the urban fabric. The workshop provided an occasion to mend this detachment through an architectural installation that, rather than bringing the city towards the sea, brings the marine element back into the urban fabric."

Swarovski commissioned FR-EE / Fernando Romero EnterprisE to design an installation for Design Miami/ that "explores man's relationship with the sun." One billion times smaller than the sun, the installation - El Sol - is a spherical geodesic dome made from 2880 Swarovski crystals that "augment light emitted from its core" to "evoke the sun's gaseous, moving terrain."

"The project has allowed me to explore mathematics in relation to nature and my Mexican ancestry, which is very important and personal to my practice," said Fernando Romero.  

The Flatiron Public Plaza has unveiled its centerpiece for this year’s “23 Days of Flatiron Cheer” – SOFTLab’s Nova, the winner of a closed-competition hosted by the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District (BID) and Van Alen Institute. The project will become the center of the neighbourhood’s festivities for the holiday season, as well as “a highly visible landmark” in the heart of New York.

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Kengo Kuma & Associates has unveiled its latest project for the Galerie Philippe Gravier in Paris. Entitled Yure, a Japanese expression for a nomadic habitat moving in the wind, the project is made from identical wooden pieces, seeking to blur the lines between art and architecture with its organic structural geometry.

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MARC FORNES & THEVERYMANY have completed "Pleated Inflation" a new permanent installation located in Argeles-Sur-Mer, France. Following in the footsteps of projects such as their "Vaulted Willow," the design is the latest in what they term their "structural shingle" group of projects, made up of pleated aluminum sheets which - thanks to the firm's computational design technique - simultaneously serve as the project's structure, enclosure, and its primary architectural component.

Commissioned as part of the French 1% Artistique program by the Region Languedoc Roussillon, the project serves as an informal amphitheater for the students at Lycée Christian Bourquin, "bringing together structural performance and spatial experience" with its "ornate shadows cast from porous structural pleats." Read on for more images and the full description from the architects.

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SOFTlab has been chosen as the second annual winner of the Flatiron Public Plaza design competition in New York. Their winning proposal, Nova will open to the public next month on Wednesday, November 18th. Its "crystalline" structure aims to intrigue the passer-by, welcoming them inside for framed views of the Flatiron Building and surrounding landmarks, including the Met Life Tower and Empire State Building.

James Corner Field Operations has been chosen to design the National Building Museum's 2016 Summer Block Party installation. Just like its predecessors, including Snarkitecture's popular BEACH and BIG's massive Labyrinth, the installation will take over the Museum's Great Hall. With the design in its preliminary stages, little has been revealed. However, its mission is to "present innovative, interactive experiences that experiment with new ways of seeing and understanding the built environment."

“We are very excited about this opportunity to once again transform the Great Hall for summer spectacle and pleasure,” said James Corner, adding that “it will be a great challenge to surpass the genius of previous installations, but also an opportunity to explore something new and unexpected.” 

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AL_A has completed Melbourne's second annual MPavilion. The temporary installation, initiated by Naomi Milgrom Foundation, was unveiled today in Queen Victoria Gardens. For the next four months, the public is welcome to populate the artificial "forest canopy," whose translucent petals were developed using aerospace technology to demonstrate how an ultra-lightweight structure that can "sit lightly on the landscape and gently respond to the climate." "Each petal is fitted with LED lights that are activated by the sunset to give a light performance synchronized with music," says the organizers.

Images have been released of Melbourne's second annual MPavilion. Designed by British architect Amanda Levete of AL_A, the temporary structure will use the latest technology in nautical engineering to stimulate a forest-like canopy within the city’s Queen Victoria Gardens. A series of three- and five-meter wide petals made from ultra-thin translucent composite and carbon fiber will "sway" on top slender columns, mimicking the tree line to the site's east.

Casting complex shadows and engulfing visitors in a series of maze-like spaces, the Parasite Pavilion was constructed as part of the Synergy & Symbiosis event at the 2014 Venice Biennale, which showcased the best of the UABB Shenzhen and Hong Kong Biennale from 2005 to 2014. Based on the Bug Dome pavilion, a similar experiment from Hong Kong 2009, constructed by Weak! Architects as an icon of "illegal architecture," this new pavilion is the product of an intensive five day workshop, with the cooperation of architects and students from Europe, Australia, and China. Read on after the break to learn more about the Pavilion and Workshop.

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An expansion to their permanent Level Green exhibition at Volkswagen Autostadt visitor’s center in Wolfsburg, J. MAYER H. has completed a “playful learning landscape” of inhabitable solid wood sculptures that allow children to explore various aspects of sustainability. From the “issue of mobility” to cooking courses, the “MobiVersum” is designed to challenge children’s motor skills and imagination.

In an industrial section of Marseille, tents climb up a factory wall like a canvas creeper, housing urban campers and the local homeless alike. A-KAMP47, Stephane Malka's newest installation, subtly critiques the French state's promise for universal housing as well as makes an architectural commentary - Malka cites Le Corbusier's Unite D'Habitation as inspiration. Metropolis Magazine's Samuel Medina takes an in-depth look at the project in "Hiding in Plain Sight."

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