[Image: Pole Dance, P.S. 1 competition-winning design by SO-IL].
I have to admit to being less than overwhelmed by the annual P.S. 1 competition—aka the Young Architects Program—as well as by the annual Serpentine Pavilion in London, but this year’s P.S. 1 winner, by Brooklyn-based SO-IL, looks pretty amazing.
[Image: Pole Dance, P.S. 1 competition-winning design by SO-IL].
Although it will be nothing but a sea of bungee-anchored soccer nets and wobbly fiber-glass poles—with some colored balls thrown overhead as mobile ornaments—the structure has the feel of being the framework for an emerging game, an obscure sport whose spatial rules are yet to be determined.
As the architects themselves explain in their initial proposal, “On discovery of its elasticity, visitors engage with the structure, to envision games, test its limits or just watch it gently dance.”
[Images: Pole Dance by SO-IL].
Put another way, if Yona Friedman were to become president of FIFA, perhaps this would be the weird new playing field he might develop.
[Image: Pole Dance by SO-IL].
The view from the street, of tall poles gently swaying amidst nets, will also be interesting to see.
While you’re on SO-IL‘s website, check out their proposal Party Wall, as well as their well-weathered documentation of a garden shed in Belgium.
How can any one think that this is worthy of winning anything! This is a prison space! No one will use this space. this is completely out of the Human context, and cold. Look at the surrounding buildings. How does it speak to the patterns of language within the built environment for which it is proposed. It has a feeling of entrapment. It is completely cut off from the street. There is no connections and no green space either.
Dustin, the concrete wall—and the interior courtyard created by that concrete wall—is part of the already existing site; it is not part of the architects' proposal.