Showcasing industry talent with MoMA PS1

Hide & Seek, 2018 Winner 

Client: Dream The Combine

Arup Services: Structural engineering, lighting design

Arup assisted Minneapolis-based Dream The Combine in the creation of Hide & Seek, a visually responsive, kinetic installation that used a series of pavilions, stages, and movable mirrored walls to create a “multiplicity of viewpoints.” Our structural experts contributed engineering solutions for the architectural installation, which used eight intersecting steel volumes configured to encourage community interaction across the courtyard. Each spatial element contained two large gimbaled mirrors that moved with the wind or when touched, thus shifting visitors’ perceptions of the space around them. The engineering team worked closely with the architect to devise a solution using a universal joint that allowed the large mirrors to safely swivel in all directions.

Arup’s lighting team came up with a scheme to spatially divide the installation into two mirror worlds: one rendered with color-changing (RGBW) lights and a second rendered with warm 2,700k white light. A giant “cloud luminaire” was created by running a large hanging band across the courtyard, filling it with mist and lighting it with RGBW lighting fixtures. 

Lumen, 2017 Winner 

Client: Jenny Sabin Studio

Arup Services: Structural engineering

In 2017, Arup worked with artist, architect and educator Jenny Sabin to develop an integrated structural and architectural design for Lumen, a lightweight tensile canopy that spanned the MoMA PS1 courtyard.  Lumen’s main features included a cable net-like canopy structure made of 250 hexagonal cells framed in nylon webbing. Each cell was infilled with a knitted panel and suspended tubes. The installation included two types of knitted panels—one using photo luminescent fibers and the other using solar active fibers that changed color when exposed to UV light.

The cable net was supported at discrete locations by 40-foot tall tensegrity towers, constructed of a steel mast and suspended ring, and prestressed using a spiraling pattern of synthetic ropes. The towers were designed to be formally and materially integrated with the canopy design and to reference the work of Robert LeRicolais and Vladimir Shukhov.

COSMO, 2015 Winner 

Client: Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation

Arup Services: Plumbing and electrical engineering 

Architect Andrés Jaque’s 2015 winner COSMO was a moveable tower made from water-purifying pipes. Intended to inspire dialogue about how to address worldwide shortages in clean water, COSMO was engineered to put 3,000 gallons of water through a 4-day long process of purification, eliminating particles and nitrates, balancing PH, and increasing oxygen levels. At the end of each 4-day cycle, the process began anew, the water becoming purer with each round. 

Arup provided plumbing and electrical engineering support for the installation described by Architect Magazine as “an assemblage of ecosystems, based on advanced environmental design.” Arup worked with the team to develop selection criteria for water moving equipment and piping, aided in the design of the network’s geometry and arrangement, provided electrical designs for the supporting pumping equipment and lighting, and created piping sketches to aid in installation. 

Hy-Fi, 2014 Winner 

Client: The Living

Arup Services: Structural engineering 

Awards: National Council of Structural Engineers Associations (NCSEA), Excellence in Structural Engineering Award, Other Structures, 2015

Arup collaborated with The Living throughout the design and construction of their 2017 installation Hy-Fi, a sculptural tower made entirely of mushroom bricks, a material that had never before been used to construct a project of this scale.

Mushroom bricks are an organic product, produced by Ecovative, which are grown from a combination of mycelium and agricultural waste. Because little was known about the structural properties of the bricks prior to the launch of this project, Arup’s engineers began by performing tests to evaluate their strength. Once it was determined that the mushroom bricks were structurally robust enough to stand up, Arup’s team worked closely with The Living to devise the design of a 41-foot tall tower comprised of 10,000 bricks. With memories of Hurricane Sandy still fresh in the minds of New Yorkers, our engineers designed a wide base, composed of three braided chimneys, that was capable of withstanding wind gusts over 65mph. The collaboration pushed the boundaries of biological technology and resulted in a striking project with a carbon footprint nearing zero.

Pole Dance, 2010 Winner

Client: Solid Objectives Idenburg Liu (SO-IL)

Arup Services: Acoustic, audiovisual, onsite production

Created by Solid Objectives Idenburg Liu, Pole Dance was a dynamic social space designed to encourage visitors to investigate the relationship between movement, vibration, and waves. Arup was given free license to devise an approach to the installation’s acoustic and audiovisual elements, provided the technology remained unobtrusive. The Arup team proposed a scheme that turned sound into a fundamental component of the experience by converting the installation’s movements into sound and visuals. 

Working in concert with the architect, Arup designed, integrated and installed an interactive “instrument” that converted the motion of the wind and spectator movement into sound. The instrument was composed of eight, 30-foot tall fiber poles set in a grid pattern and connected via bungee cords that gently swayed in response to wind and movement. In the installation’s passive state, the wind moving through the poles and netting generated sound. In its active state, the audience created sound by directly interacting with elements of the structure. The instrument’s tones were modulated when audience members pushed, pulled or shook the poles or moved the net, and could be further manipulated in real time via a free downloadable app. The sine tones produced by each of the poles were carefully calibrated to produce a unified harmonic effect. 

Liquid Sky, 2007 Winner 

Client: Ball-Nogues

Arup Services: Structural engineering

2007 winner Liquid Sky harnessed the power of the sun to immerse viewers in a kaleidoscope of color, described by Alanna Heiss, PS1’s founding director, as “a Fellini-esque project: a circus tent." Creator Ball-Nogues worked together with Arup, Endres Ware Architects/Engineers and the Product Architecture Lab at Stevens Institute to develop the canopy design that fused together an array of translucent, tinted Mylar petals to create a tensioned surface. The team also designed “Droopscape,” a complementary installation that occupied the neighboring courtyard. Droopscape was comprised of a supple catenary belly supported off of towers topped with “gravity-induced tip buckets” that periodically drenched visitors in water.

SUR, 2005 Winner 

Client: Xefirotarch

Arup Services: Structural engineering    

Los Angeles-based firm Xefirotarch’s innnovative installation SUR won the sixth annual MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program in 2005. Arup structural engineers worked closely with Xefirotarch Principal Hernan Diaz Alonso to realize the undulating outdoor sculpture that evoked a large-scale, disassembled human skeleton. Creating the form of the unique sculpture required the team to devise “a tectonic language for a formal system that has heretofore been largely theoretical,” said Terence Riley, who served as the Philip Johnson Chief Curator for Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art between 1991 and 2006. The structural strategy developed by Arup consisted of a base cast from composite fiberglass and rubber and a freestanding aluminum armature covered with latex and polyurethane-sprayed spandex.