Columbia GSAPP has shared details of its new student-led, temporary inflatable Cloud structure in Avery Plaza.
The installation culminates a two-semester seminar led by GSAPP faculty members Laurie Hawkinson and Galia Solomonoff.
The temporary pavilion structure, which is made out of metallic foam fabricated by a Spanish manufacturer called Àrea Cúbica, "envisions a participatory experience that emphasizes the interconnectedness of peoples’ actions in shared spaces."
Inside, seating is anchored by a cascading series of nets. The pavilion is 66 feet wide and suspended by 25 cables, emerging from a fourth-floor classroom window. Columbia says its appearance works to reframe "the relationship between Avery Hall and Avery Plaza, questioning notions of connectivity between interior and exterior spaces" while also "challenging boundaries of conditioned space."
Beyond this good lesson on spatial principles, the pavilion encourages a beneficial kind of social interaction that the Morningside Heights campus has struggled with since well before the pandemic and recent protests over the Israeli incursion into Gaza.
Its space was also used to host GSAPP's Fall 2024 Open House event. It will remain open to host others and the entire Columbia community until October 30th.
8 Comments
They should have invited a Palestinian (or pro Palestinian) artist to collaborate on this sculpture. Then it may had made a tiny modicum of sense.
Maybe they feared Mossad destroying it with people under it while "envisioning a participatory experience that emphasizes the interconnectedness of peoples’ actions in shared spaces..."
This kind of thing is why architects are irrelevant.
Also, how elite institutes like Columbia are pushing us further towards irrelevance...
Looks like an old Twilight Zone episode where the intestines of a giant space alien have plopped down on an unsuspecting faculty gathering.
b3tadine[sutures] beat me to it, but if this isn't a signal to how absolutely irrelevant the profession is, than I don't know what is.
I honestly think this is a very ambitious project for a group of students to pull off. It's lovely.
I agree with the crit, but I dunno. In the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the sequel to Space Odyssey, the US and USSR are locked in a downward spiral that can only end in global war. At the end whatever lies behind the Monolith turns Jupiter into another star, restructuring the night sky with another point of light, a break, a change, that moves the warring nations to seek peace.
This huge but quiet—and ungainly—presence could work in the same way, maybe, cause people to pause and reflect when they look up. It will not create a participatory experience that emphasizes the interconnectedness of peoples’ actions in shared spaces.
It's temporary.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.