Project Details
- Project Name
- Hide & Seek at MoMA PS1
- Architect
- Dream the Combine
- Client/Owner
- MoMA PS1
- Project Types
- Cultural
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Size
- 18,000 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2018
- Shared by
- Hanley Wood
- Project Status
- Built
“The museum can throw a hell of a party without architecture,” says Tom Carruthers, half of the Minneapolis-based partnership Dream the Combine, standing in the courtyard of MoMA PS1, the Queens outpost of New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. So with the design for Hide & Seek—the duo’s winning design for the annual Young Architects Program (YAP) summer pavilion that shelters and shades attendees of MoMA PS1’s weekly Warm Up concert series—“we’re after this visceral experience in the body,” says partner Jennifer Newsom, AIA.
Carruthers and Newsom, in collaboration with Clayton Binkley of Arup, mounted 34 mirrored glass sheets, grouped into 14 gimbaled panels, onto a framework of steel trusses set in and above MoMA PS1’s trio of connected, concrete-walled courtyards, dividing the outdoor space into smaller, human-scaled sections. The mirrors move, in response to wind or human touch, reflecting changing views. But they also bring more of the party inside: A mirror mounted at the northwest corner reflects the line that forms at the door and snakes around the museum on Saturday nights. Angling the mirrors just so was “like playing pool but with mirrors and eyeballs,” Carruthers says.
A raised “runway” occupies one of the steel frames in the largest courtyard, while a polyester rope hammock occupies one of the two smaller spaces. A mesh canopy stretches over many of the steel frames, shading party guests from the summer sun. Fulfilling the brief’s requirement for a water element to cool visitors, the top two trusses contain a misting system, and LED fixtures illuminate the mist at night, creating “a kind of literal watercolor,” Carruthers says.
As the name suggests, YAP, now in its 19th official year, has become an incubator for young design talent. The duo founded Dream the Combine in 2013, and Newsom is the first black architect to win YAP. When asked how this commission has impacted their studio, Newsom says: “People know who we are.”
Project Credits
Project: Hide & Seek, MoMA PS1, New York
Client: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and MoMA PS1
Architect: Dream the Combine, Minneapolis . Jennifer Newsom, AIA, Tom Carruthers (principals and lead architectural design); Max Ouellette-Howitz, Tom Vogel, Nero He, Emmy Tong, Mikki Heckman
Structural Engineer/Lighting Design: Arup
General Contractor: Jacobsson Carruthers
Fabrication/Installation: Murphy Rigging & Erecting; LnJ Tech Services; Liskelly Construction; Checkpoint Welding & Fabrication
Size: 18,000 square feet
Cost: Withheld
Project Description
Read ARCHITECT's coverage of the design announcement.
From a MoMA PS1 press release:
Hide & Seek by Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers of Dream The Combine, in collaboration with Clayton Binkley of Arup, will be on view in MoMA PS1’s courtyard from June 28 through September 3, 2018. Winner of The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1’s annual Young Architects Program, this year’s construction is a responsive, kinetic environment that features eight intersecting elements arrayed across the entirety of the MoMA PS1 courtyard. Hide & Seek serves as a temporary urban landscape for the 21st season of Warm Up, MoMA PS1’s pioneering outdoor music series.
Now in its 19th edition, the Young Architects Program at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 has offered 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 that provides shade, seating, and water. The architects must also work within guidelines that address environmental issues.
Inspired by the crowd, the street, and the jostle of relationships found in the contemporary city, Hide & Seek enables surprising connections throughout the adjoining courtyards of MoMA PS1 and the surrounding streets. Each of the horizontal structures contains two inward-facing, gimbaled mirrors suspended from a frame. The mirrors move in the wind or with human touch, permitting dislocating views and unique spatial relationships across the space that foster unexpected interactions. As the vanishing points disappear into the depths of the mirrors, the illusion of space expands beyond the physical boundaries of the Museum and bends into new forms, creating visual connections within the courtyard and onto the streets outside. In reference to these unpredictable gestures, the upper registers of the steel structure are filled with a cloud of mist and light, responding to the activity and life of Warm Up at night. Scriptive elements, including a runway and a large-scale hammock, invite visitors into performance and establish platforms for improvisation.