Opened, Hy-Fi by The Living. MoMAPS1 2014
01/07/2014.
[VIDEO] Young Architects Program 2014. MoMAPS1 [NYC] USA 27.06 > 07.09.2014
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
Now in its 15th edition, the Young Architects Program (YAP) at MoMA and MoMA PS1 has been 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. Hy-Fi, drawn from among five finalists, will provide a temporary urban structure for the 2014 Warm Up summer music series, which begins on June 28, and for MoMA PS1 visitors throughout the summer.
Hy-Fi by The Living combines cutting-edge engineering with innovative biotechnology to create a new building material that is grown rather than manufactured, and with it a structure that is almost entirely compostable. Its bricks are made entirely of organic matter, a combination of discarded cornstalks and living root-like structures from mushrooms. After a few days in a mold, this mixture hardens into a sturdy, lightweight solid. The natural cycle of carbon through the ground, air, water, and living matter is temporarily diverted to produce a building that grows out of and returns to nothing but earth—with almost no waste, no energy input, and no carbon emissions.
The shiny blocks near the top of the structure are the molds in which the organic bricks are grown. They are coated in a special light-refracting film invented by 3M, which helps direct light down into the towers. Once the structure is taken down, these molds will be sent back to 3M for further research. The tower is designed to create a pleasant microclimate in the summer by drawing in cool air at the bottom and pushing out hot air at the top. Hy-Fi offers shade, color, light, views, and a futuristic experience that is refreshing, thought-provoking, and full of wonder and optimism.
Venue.- MoMA PS1. 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY. USA.
Dates.- June 27-September 7, 2014.
The Living (David Benjamin) was founded with the mission of creating the architecture of the future. Exploring how new technologies come to life in the built environment, they have a passion for the way that targeted constructions can activate urban space. The Living believes cities and buildings are living, breathing organisms. In the context of new technologies and new urban challenges, there is a great opportunity to create corresponding living, breathing design ecosystems. At The Living, they have established a design ecosystem that links complex flows of people, resources, data, and energy. It is based on three primary elements: information, material, and environment. Within this design ecosystem, they work on multiple scales simultaneously. The Living anticipates and welcomes rapid change, and embraces design with uncertainty, design with rules rather than fixed forms, and design with shifting and unknowable forces.
To execute Hy-Fi , The Living worked with collaborators, including Ecovative (the New York start-up that invented their no-waste material), 3M (the company that invented daylighting mirror film), Advanced Metal Coatings Incorporated (the company that is testing their natural materials for durability in New York summer conditions), Shabd Simon-Alexander and Audrey Louisere (the natural-dye artists who are developing custom colors and coatings for their organic bricks), Build It Green Compost (the Queens-based non-profit that will process their building materials after the installation and provide them to local community gardens), Associated Fabrication, Kate Orff and SCAPE Landscape Architecture, Arup, Atelier Ten, Autodesk, Bruce Mau Design, Brooklyn Digital Foundry, and a team of graduate research students at Columbia University who will help construct and deconstruct the structure.
David Benjamin, received his M.Arch. degree from Columbia University, where he has been the Director of the Living Architecture Lab and Assistant Professor since 2005. He is cofounder of the design and research studio The Living, is collaborating with plant biologists at the University of Cambridge in England to 3D print materials that mimic the forms and structures of bacteria. The director of the Living Lab at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Benjamin has played drums in Los Angeles before he started studying architecture at Columbia in 2002. He has since designed a pop-up stadium for Nike—with whom West collaborated on the Air Yeezy—and continues to work on the Advanced Data Visualization Project with Thomson Reuters.
Benjamin has subsequently received numerous awards including the New York Prize Fellowship, the Van Alen Institute; a R + D Award, Architect Magazine; the American Institute of Architects New Practices New York Award; and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.