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Installation - |
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PERFORMA BIENNIAL -HUB AT COOPER UNION |
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New York, USA
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nOffice were commissioned by RoseLee Goldberg to design a central space for the 2009 Performa Biennale for performance art in New York. The so-called Hub, Performa's 1st architectural commission, was located on the ground floor of the new Cooper Union building (designed by Morphosis) at Soho's Cooper Square. The Hub is a symbiotic space bringing together a disparate collection of programs on a condensed area such as meeting space, screenings, interview and conference booth, lecture hall, bookshop and lounge. It was a temporary intervention intended to exist for the duration of the Biennial.
nOffice's aim was to design a coherent environment that is able to embody a multiplicity of diverse voices - a democratic archipelago in which hidden structures expose subliminal yet intended narratives. A long and tall wall, which follows the existing section of a lowered ceiling, produces two kinds of spatial conditions: an open field in which directly visible programmes will take place, as well as a series of pockets, dug into the wall. The open field in front of the wall has more of a generic character whereas the pockets in the wall are spatially more specific.
The angular plywood wall is a form of support, enabling the various programs and encouraging social interaction. It is also a gesture that possesses a formal and material strength that, to a certain extent, also dominates the space. Thus, the wall acts simultaneously as background and foreground.
In that respect nOffice interprets architecture as providing and enhancing the performance of matter, while maintaining autonomy of production.
The Hub is conceived as a form of prototype – a generic-specific framework with built-in conceptual 'slack' that can be adjusted and improvised in order to be placed in several potential locations. It is a structure strong enough to assert its presence and malleable enough to be adapted to different building contexts.
The Hub was built for a total of less than 15'000 USD and completed in less than a week. - |
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Local architect: Nate Lindsey
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Photographer: Bradley Jones
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Commission
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2009
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