NYCxDESIGN will present Design Pavilion, New York’s premier public design exhibition, for another year of experiential installations that engage, inform and inspire from October 12th through the 22nd, 2023. This year’s edition of Design Pavilion will feature three activations by creative visionaries from multiple disciplines that evoke motifs of materiality, sustainability, social justice, and more during Archtober, New York’s month-long celebration of architecture.
Bamboo Cloud at Hudson River Park at West 16th Street and Public Display at Gansevoort Plaza will act as ‘urban oases’ for passersby as well as temporary forums designed to inspire community gathering, productive conversation, and personal reflection. I Was Here, the third exhibition, will be a digital art projection on the World Trade Center Podium, a bold statement reflecting on our country’s legacy of enslavement and the wish to heal wounded sites. Additionally, the organization’s Design Talks series will continue, this year held at the Gansevoort Plaza installation with a particular focus on conversations around sustainability, repurposing, and elimination of the world’s waste.
BAMBOO CLOUD: Hudson River Park at West 16th Street
- October 12-22, 11am-9pm Daily
Bamboo Cloud by Shanghai-based architecture studio llLab was designed to challenge the traditional applications of bamboo, exploring its potential as an organic, sustainable building construction material, following a similar installation in Guilin in 2020. While still retaining the beauty of a handcrafted basket with its woven structure, the installation breaks the conventional boundaries of the material by boldly showcasing its strength. Composed of bamboo strips woven into a porous surface, the pavilion naturally uses its internal force for form finding and eventually stabilizes as a hollow space, which is structurally resilient with the potential to be used at building-scale. Working in collaboration with world-renowned architectural lighting design firm L’Observatoire International and high efficiency lighting suppliers Nanometer Lighting Color Kinetics, Bamboo Cloud will also be washed aglow with light from below, elevating it to another level of beauty.
PUBLIC DISPLAY: Gansevoort Plaza in Meatpacking BID
- October 12-19, 11am-9pm Daily
Public Display will sit at Gansevoort Plaza, a spatial composition crafted to facilitate public gathering for connection and communication. The installation was conceptualized by Michael Bennett, former Super Bowl Champion and NFL defensive end, who is now exploring architecture as the Founding Principal and Creative Director at Studio Kër. Bennett found inspiration in the profound interplay of materials and space, becoming particularly fascinated by the properties of Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT). Balanced to perfection, Public Display relies on the qualities of CLT, elevating the concept of “mass” to an art form that enhances the weight of mass, the lightness of space, and the poetry of connection. Tension arises when a weighty object occupies space, yet it instills a sense of peace and tranquility. The installation not only holds substance in form, it also holds space for dialogue and revelation, making it the ideal conversation pit for this year’s edition of Design Talks. With programming curated by Stockholm-based industrial design studio Form Us with Love, the talks will explore waste management, the circular economy, and other sustainability-related topics.
I WAS HERE: The Podium at One World Trade Center
- October 12-22, 7pm-9pm Daily
I Was Here project is a series of public art installations that began in 2016 in Lexington, KY, making its NYC debut during Design Pavilion, to serve as a reverent acknowledgement of American history, presented in a variety of mediums and methods. Hosted by Spireworks this October, animated Ancestor Spirit Portraits will be projected on all four sides of The World Trade Center Podium, 200 feet above the ground. Conceptualized by Marjorie Guyon with video and animation co-created by Marc Aptakin, Roy Husdell, and Yoel Meneses of Yes We Are Mad, the presentation will commemorate those whose names we will never know and begin the process of healing wounded sites from the legacy of enslavement. This site, so deeply significant to our recent American experience, also neighbors the New York Harbor and the intersection of Wall Street and the East River, the second largest auction site for enslaved Africans in the country.
Following this activation in Lower Manhattan, NYCxDESIGN will continue support of I Was Here over the next year around the city through projections, digital experiences, Augmented Reality, monumental Spirit Portraits, soundscapes, poetic narratives, and dance.
ABOUT NYCxDESIGN
NYCxDESIGN was kick-started by the City of New York in 2011 to help organize and galvanize the largest design community in the world, uniting all its design sectors. As a 501c3, NYCxDESIGN produces NYC’s annual celebration of international design, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees and designers from across the globe. Taking place each May, the NYCxDESIGN Festival celebrates a world of design and showcases over a dozen design disciplines through exhibitions, installations, trade shows, talks, tours, product launches, open studios, and more. Like design itself, NYCxDESIGN is everywhere, with events taking place across the city’s five boroughs. Brought to life by New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) in conjunction with a steering committee of leading members of New York City’s design community, NYCxDESIGN highlights the unique creative, cultural, educational, and economic opportunities in New York City. More info at nycxdesign.org
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Source: NYCxDESIGN, Design Pavilion
