Winner project of MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program

MoMA PS1 presents Party Wall by CODA Architects

Installation view of CODA’s Party Wall at MoMA PS1. June 2013. Photo: Zachary Newton © artdaily.org

The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 presents Party Wall, the CODA (Caroline O’Donnell, Ithaca, NY) –designed winner of the annual Young Architects Program (YAP) in New York - through August 31.

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, designed a temporary urban landscape for the 2013 Warm Up summer music series in MoMA PS1’s outdoor courtyard. Party Wall 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 comprised of donated from 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. At various locations under the structure, pools of water serve as refreshing cooling stations.

“CODA's proposal was selected because of its clever identification and use of locally available resources—the waste products of skateboard-making—to make an impactful and poetic architectural statement within MoMA PS1's courtyard,” said Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design.

“CODA developed an outstanding, iconic design that will support the many social functions of our large-scale group exhibition EXPO 1: New York, while creating a unique and stunning object for our outdoor galleries,” added Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at MoMA.

The other finalists for this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program were Leong Architects (New York, NY, Dominic Leong, Chris Leong); Moorhead & Moorhead (New York, NY, Granger Moorhead, Robert Moorehead); TempAgency (Charlottesville, VA, and Brooklyn, NY, Leena Cho, Rychlee Espinosa, Matthew Jull, Seth McDowell); and French 2D (Boston, MA, and Syracuse, NY, Anda French, Jenny French).