Architects: Coda Architects, New York, USA   

Location: MoMA, New York, USA
 

Party Wall, by CODA, is the 2013 winner of the Young Architects’ Program at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 in New York City, is a pavilion and flexible experimental space that provides shade for the Warm Up crowds, along with other functions. 
 

The porous façade is affixed to a tall self-supporting steel frame that is balanced in place with large PVC coated polyestere fabric containers filled with water, and clad with a screen of interlocking wooden elements donated by Comet, an Ithaca-based manufacturer of eco-friendly skateboards. 
 

The lower portion of Party Wall’s façade is capable of shedding its “exterior,” as 120 panels can be detached from the structure and used as benches and communal tables during Warm Up and other events and programs, including lectures, classes, performances, and film screenings. 
 

A shallow stage of reclaimed wood weaves around Party Wall’s base to create a series of micro-stages for performances of varying types and scales. 
 

At various locations under the structure, pools of water serve as refreshing cooling stations that can also be covered to provide additional staging space or a source of additional shade. Party Wall’s steel-angle structure is ballasted by water-filled “pillows” made of PVC coated polyestere fabric that will be lit at night to produce a luminous effect. 
 

Party Wall acts as an aqueduct by carrying a stream of water along the top of the structure. The water is projected from the structure, via a pressure-tank, into a fountain that feeds a misting station and a series of pools. 

Technical info: PVC coated polyestere fabric

Picture credits: Zachary Tyler Newton