Archinect - News

I Melt With You: "Indoor City" installation explores dissolving spatial boundaries in an era of climate change

2017-03-14T17:44:00-04:00

With layered narration from writers and the input of a climate scientist, the 40-foot long table installation known as "Indoor City" designed by Founder Rome Prize Fellows Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem (MODU) with Jonathan Berger, Hussein Fancy, Christoph Meinrenken, Jack Livings and Matthew Null, tackles the dire conceptual heft of designing for massive systemic weather change.

By placing carbon ice on the installation, the idea is to track how divisions between urban spaces and the environment release more carbon dioxide into the air, thereby creating more stress on the environment (and making the urban spaces quite unpleasant to live in as a result). The project advocates for a more integrated design concept while allowing visitors to enjoy what amounts to a trippy installation. Here's a video of the installation, which is part of the 2017 Cinque Mostre show and will be viewable in person at the American Academy in Rome until April 4th:

Winners of New Practices New York 2016 announced

2016-02-10T12:49:00-05:00

Judged by a five-member jury including Architect's Newspaper editor-in-chief William Menking and Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MOMA Martino Stierli, the 2016 New Practices New York winners are MODU, SCHAUM/SHIEH, stpmj, Studio Cadena, Taller KEN, and the suitably-named Young Projects. Some of the award-wining work includes a "sliding screen partition made from folded, polished stainless steel" by Young Projects in Tribeca:

stpmj garnered the award by submitting their Shear House project, an environmentally sensitive house sited in Yecheon, Korea:

Meanwhile, Taller KEN used an inventive moulded fiberglass element for their Zona 14 House in Guatemala City:

MODU’s “Weather (Un)Control” exhibition explores the post-Sandy indoor air environment

2013-12-12T18:20:00-05:00

As America's East Coast continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy, MODU's recently completed "Weather (Un)control" exhibition of the Marfa Dialogues/NY highlights an overlooked issue of the storm's aftermath that still remains: the invisible contaminants in indoor air.

The installation features drawings made from artificial dust and static electricity to address the current shortsighted methods for indoor air quality inspection and a "right" to better indoor air.

Photos by Brett Beyer.

More info at Bustler.

MODU’s Outdoor Room installation highlights air quality crisis in Beijing

2013-11-27T20:27:00-05:00

MODU's competition-winning Outdoor Room creates a visual experience while raising awareness on Beijing's persistent air-quality issues. Recently installed in Beijing's Olympic Park for the 5th China International Architecture Biennial, the 5,000 sq.ft pavilion functions as urban public space and a barometer for Beijing's air quality levels — which are documented as much as the daily weather report.

All images courtesy of MODU, photography: Matthew Niederhauser.