Caroline O’Donnell, CODA, winner of the 2013 YOUNG ARCHITECTS PROGRAM
18/01/2013.
At MoMA PS1 [NYC] USA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Intelligence and recycling, it is the project sign by Caroline O'Donnell, in annual proposal for the MoMA PS1 Young Architects. Congratulations!
The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 announce CODA (Caroline O'Donnell, Ithaca, NY) as the winner of the annual Young Architects Program (YAP) in New York.
Now in its 14th edition, the Young Architects Program at MoMA and MoMA PS1 is committed to offering emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and present innovative projects, challenging each year's winners to develop creative designs for a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1 that provides shade, seating, and water. The architects must also work within guidelines that address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling. CODA, drawn from among five finalists, will design a temporary urban landscape for the 2013 Warm Up summer music series in MoMA PS1's outdoor courtyard.
The winning project, Party Wall, opening at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City in late June, is a pavilion and flexible experimental space that uses its large-scale, linear form to provide shade for the Warm Up crowds, in addition to other functions.
The porous façade is affixed to a tall self-supporting steel frame that is balanced in place with large fabric containers filled with water, and clad with a screen of interlocking wooden elements donated by Comet, an Ithaca-based manufacturer of eco-friendly skateboards.
The lower portion of the Party Wall’s façade is capable of shedding its “exterior,” as 120 panels can be detached from the structure and used as benches and communal tables during Warm Up and other diverse events and programs such as lectures, classes, performances, and film screenings.
A shallow stage of reclaimed wood weaves around Party Wall’s base to create a series of micro-stages for performances of varying types and scales. 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. Party Wall acts as an aqueduct by carrying a stream of water along the top of the structure. The water is projected from the structure, via a pressure-tank, into a fountain that feeds a misting station and a series of pools.
"CODA's proposal was selected because of its clever identification and use of locally available resourcesthe waste products of skateboard-makingto 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."
CODA is an Ithaca-based experimental design and research studio operating at a range of scales. CODA’s work is a negotiation between form and the environment. The engagement with the complexities of site is fundamental to each design strategy, producing an intervention that is both emergent from and reactive to a particular environment. The firm’s recent projects include Bloodline, a self-consuming barbeque pavilion in Stuttgart, Germany; Urban Punc., an urban strategy for Leisnig, Germany (in collaboration with Troy Schaum); CounterSpace, a housing development in Dublin, Ireland; Noatun, an urban plan for Klaksvik, Faroe Islands; Zoom House, a seasonal extension in Brisbane, Australia; and Half-House, a house in a secret location in the United States. For more information, visit co-da.co.
CAROLINE O'DONNELL was born in Ireland in 1974. She received her B.A. (Hons) and B.Arch with distinction from the Manchester School of Architecture, England, where she was awarded the Heywood Medal. She received her Masters in Architecture at Princeton University, and was awarded the Suzanne K. Underwood Prize for exceptional ability and talent in Architectural Design.
Since 2000, O'Donnell has worked on numerous commissions and competitions, both independently and collaboratively, including with SMAQ, Shine Project Group, Troy Schaum, Brantley Hightower, and Mike Green. From 2006 - 2008, she was project architect at Eisenman Architects in New york, where she directed the design teams form several projects, including Hamburg Library, Pompei Santuario Railway Station. From 2000 - 2004 she was a designer at KCAP, Rotterdam.
She has contributed to several journals including Thresholds, Log, MAP and Pidgin. She is one of the founding editors (along with Brian Tabolt and Marc McQuade) of Pidgin Magazine and is currently the editor-in-chief of the Cornell Journall of Architecture.
O'Donnell is currently the Richard Meier Assistant Professor at Cornell University. She has previously taught at The Cooper Union and Princeton University. Since June 2008, she has been a fellow at Akademie Schlooss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany.