The Party's Over: P.S.1 and MOS Architects

But what a blast it was while an installation by MOS transformed P.S.1's courtyard in Long Island City

David Sokol -- Interior Design, 9/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Since the MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program competition was launched a decade ago, perhaps no participants have worked harder than this year's winners. MOS, founded by the husband-wife team of Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample, had been short-listed twice before. In 2004, they proposed covering the courtyard in a canopy of knitted industrial rope; in 2007, they imagined an inflatable volume sitting above the gravel surface.

After making a jury presentation in January for Afterparty, Meredith and Sample kept their expectations suitably low. "Our team was just exhausted and quiet, with me trying to figure out what we did wrong," Meredith says of the dejected minivan ride back home to New Haven. Sample adds, "The call came as we pulled into our driveway."



Sample, who teaches at Yale University, and Meredith, who does the same at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, concede that, at first glance, their installation might not have charmed. It comprised 16 aluminum-framed volumes, their domes and hyperbolic curves intended to pay homage to modernist architect Felix Candela while the tallest volumes, five towers, referenced the industrial neighborhood's smokestacks as well. The combination "produces something slightly awkward, something that throws you off," Meredith notes. You can say that again for the volumes' shaggy covering, a palm fiber called ijuk. (Volunteers had little over a week to layer on the thatch, during one of the rainiest Junes recorded in New York.)



MOS's intentions came into focus best as you wandered through. The temperature notched downward against the courtyard's cool concrete walls, daylight filtered softly through the thatch, and faces turned upward to the oculus topping each space—like 16 little churches. Meredith says that the contemplative atmosphere became most apparent Sunday through Friday. Every Saturday in the summer, crowds packed the courtyard for Warm Up, an afternoon music party. The weekly revelers even conscripted one of the 16 sanctuaries for make-out sessions.



THROUGHOUT BRANCH RIVER PLASTICS: CUSTOM BENCHES. HOLBROOK PLASTIC PIPE SUPPLY: CONNECTORS. U.S. NETTING: MESH. THROUGH TROPICA GREENERIES: THATCH. FABRIC WORKSHOP AND MUSEUM: TEXTILE CONSULTANT. ZENIN ADRIAN DESIGN LAB: PLANT CONSULTANT. LE-MESSURIER CONSULTANTS; BURO HAPPOLD: STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS. CHRISTOPH REINHART: ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER. EDELMAN METALWORKS: METALWORK.