Spaces Featured at the National Design Triennial (07-30-10)

The National Design Triennial exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City features several intriguing spaces that support its “community” theme.  For example, the vertical village developed by Maas, van Rijs, and de Vries of MVRDV  as a temporary installation in Taipei “uses existing buildings as ‘hosts’ for extensions of different typologies, materials, and forms. The architects observed and used as their model the informal structures built on rooftops in crowded Chinese cities such as Taipei and Beijing.  They expand the living space of the occupant in a highly personalized way and provide dense, socially connected communities with an overall diversity of structure and design.”  Another featured space is the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet:  “an edifice that is as publicly interactive as it is monumental. Its most distinctive feature is a white marble roofscape, which appears like two intersecting ski jumps culminating in the water to the west, yet is really a buzzing public plaza on which one can climb and experience the building without going inside.”  A third structure profiled is the Carver Apartments in Los Angeles, which provide homes for homeless elderly and disabled people:  “The architect, Michael Maltzan, has carefully anchored the design to incorporate the outside world while offering a sanctuary for the tenants. For instance, the laundry and community room on the third floor are at the exact level of the freeway so tenants can watch the passing cars. Other common areas have sweeping views of the skyline and street, emphasizing the strong connection between exterior and interior.”

http://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org