Each summer for the past four years the PS1 forecourt has hosted an architectural installation, designed by the winner of the centre's Young Architects Programme. The programme, which has been a launching pad for thrusting practices such as SHoP (Sharples Holden and Pasquarelli), was won this year by Tom Wiscombe of EMERGENT, who is based in Los Angeles and Vienna, where he maintains a partnership with Austrian practice Coop Himmelb(l)au.
Wiscombe's design is called Light-Wing and consists of an irregular roof structure swooping over the PS1 forecourt. It is loosely based on kites and sails and overhangs a series of paddling pools. Built to a budget of $60,000, it does all a temporary installation can be expected to: exploit the potential of a showcase and give the public a taste of the unusual.
Wiscombe designed the installation with PS1's Saturday Warm Up parties in mind. "The most important thing was to create a space that functioned during the day and that was an exciting event space at night. This is readable in the roof structure, which provides shade but absorbs the sun and reradiates it at night, like a Chinese lantern or something," he says. Judging by the crowds boogying under the structure's mellow light, this installation is just as popular as its predecessors. But all summers end, and there is time for just one last dance before Light-Wing is pulled down next week.
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