
For more than 15 years, the Long Island City outpost of New York's Museum of Modern Art has commissioned an installation for its courtyard. Today the museum announced that Spanish architect Andrés Jaque won this year's competition, and will install his "COSMO" project at MoMA PS1 this summer.
The Young Architects Program competition is a coveted shot to create a temporary event space for MoMA PS1's summer concert series, dubbed "Warm Up." The installations are art in themselves, but also practical: they provide shade from New York City summer swelter.
Last year, David Benjamin of New York's The Living constructed a brick tower of corn stalks and mycelium roots in his installation called "Hy-Fi." This summer, Jaque, who heads the New York and Madrid-based Office for Political Innovation, will install a structure that intends to not only have minimal impact on the environment, it aims to improve it. According to a MoMA PS1 press release, "COSMO" is designed to filter 3,000 gallons of water every four days, a model that is also designed to be easily replicable. Plastic mesh in the installation will glow as water is cleaned.

"This year's proposal takes one of the Young Architects Program's essential requirements–providing a water feature for leisure and fun–and highlights water itself as a scarce resource," said Pedro Gadanho, curator in MoMA's department of architecture and design, in the press release.
More on MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program and Andrés Jaque:

"Political Animal," a profile by Christopher Hawthorne for ARCHITECT's Next Progressives series
"More Than 15 Ways to Design A Courtyard"
Young Architects Program in ARCHITECT Project Gallery
"COSMO" in ARCHITECT Project Gallery