How The Shed was made: The kinetic architecture of New York’s newest cultural institution

[Music] it's basically a crane it's a fixed building with multiple levels of column free floor plates and a shell that's able to nest and deploy on the fixed building and when nested opening up a big open space when deployed could be indoor/outdoor or have a flexible space where the elements could come in or have a totally sealed thermally controlled footprint that's also light and sound controlled that area had been designated as a potential site for the Olympics bid that New York did not get in the end I went to London but in true American spirit I guess rather than see that as a defeat they saw that as an opportunity and the then Mayor Bloomberg when asked if this could be repurposed he said on one condition that there would be a piece of city land at the heart of it onto which a cultural institution would rebuild so the city put out an RFP for anyone that had an idea about what to do with this plot of land and we responded to this RFP myself and David Rockwell so Liz is really really experienced in the visual arts practice David is a Tony award-winning theater designer because we had those two architects who had always cared about the Arts from the start we were able to slide in to what they were doing and I think relatively effortlessly aligned the vision which was about commissioning artists across all art forms and make this a home for them we talked to artists and leaders of cultural institutions in New York and around the world about what are the trends that might be affecting cultural institutions and one thing that everybody kept coming back to is that the Internet and the capacity it gives for people to collaborate across disciplines is fundamentally beginning to alter the cultural ecosystem and that what we're beginning to see is artists working across discipline producing work that didn't fit neatly into traditional institutions Europe doesn't have a place where all the arts can come together under one roof and I'm not just talking about separately under one roof because we have multiple disciplines at MoMA for example under one roof but I'm talking about collaboratively working together with crossover work there's nothing that says that artists need to be constricted into gallery spaces they could use the whole building the building is a tool the expandability allows the shed to be able to mount extra large installations theatrical events performances of all kinds but if that space isn't needed you could just simply Park it on the fixed building and open up an outdoor space for the public in this way it's actually very economical and very conscious about its own energy and not being wasteful and by the way the opening of the shed is the horsepower of one Prius engine so the shed has three kinetic components that make it move it has rails at the base wheel assemblies that allow it to roll and a drive system at the fixed building roof starting with the rails there's 273 feet of continuous rail along here they were brought to the site in 72 foot pieces and thermite welded on-site the wheels on each side there are two sets of single bogies on the eastern end of the building there's a double bogie it has an axle like you'd find in a car or a truck and then the wheels on either side of it sort of spin loose around a set of bearings that are mounted on to the axle it's the levelness of the rails and the freedom that those bearings offer for movement that allow the kinetic system on the top of the building to drive the eight million pound shed with just a hundred and eighty horsepower one of the unique aspects about the sheds die grid is the facade system the facade is made of ETFE ethylene tetrafluoroethylene is a Teflon based polymer that is fabricated similar to a sail where they have sail makers cut the patterns weld seams and they bring them the site rolled up they attach them to the steel frame and then may inflate the various layers it can span as long as you can fabricate it and it can resist tremendous wind loads it's very resilient wear something rigid like glass or fixed panels wouldn't be so whatever torsion the shed finds when it stops and starts is easily absorbed by this pneumatic cushion if you compare it to glass not only is the material itself one one-hundredth way to glass but it doesn't require any of the backup structure that you would typically see I would say we probably saved 30 percent of the weight of the shed through the use of the ETF a this geometry is it's very straight forward when you think about the load imposed on it right the gravity loads there are vertical columns that all go back to those bogie the wheel assemblies so the vertical structures handling that wind loads coming from call it the east or west these diagonals are taking those loads and making the frame rigid another really very important feature is that because the shed is actually a gantry crane you have to be able to hold things up and down and across and and so forth so we have this idea of being able to load very large sculptures or building materials actually through the facade and be able to use the shed as a crane to move materials up and down so we were thinking about this whole thing being an instrument for producing art for making things for installing things this was a kind of labor of love to massage this design to be clearer and more efficient but at the same time very elegant and expressive one of the key things about I've certainly learned through my experience with the shed is we're never smart enough to predict the future we give it our best shot but with technology at least when we have open platforms we can change as technologies or tastes or trends do you know I think that's the way we're gonna be designing neighborhoods in the future I think that's also the way we've tried to design the shed is as sort of open architecture like as possible so that it can adapt as times change one of the big problems with architecture is that it's geo fixed and it's permanent from the moment of its construction this building is responsive it's kind of paying attention to things and trying to accommodate and prompt as well it would be interesting to have a conversation between the building and artist and that's the thing that I look forward to most is the things that I can't possibly dream up and I would really love to be surprised by things that I couldn't imagine right now I think the building will be successful only if it produces things that we can anticipate you [Music] [Music]

Channel: Engadget

Views: 286,213

Keywords: engadget, technology, consumer tech, gadgets, science, gear, tech, the shed, architecture, new york city, hudson yards, elizabeth diller, diller scofidio + renfro, david rockwell, rockwell group, alex poots, daniel doctoroff, ETFE, bjork, arvo part, steve reich, gerhard richter, vessel, high line, manhattan, cultural institution, MOMA, guggenheim, kinetic, building

Id: MbX_6MsjsIE

Length: 7min 55sec (475 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2019