Jenny Sabin Studio: Lumen

Lumen, an immersive, interactive installation by Jenny Sabin Studio, is on view in MoMA PS1’s courtyard through September 4. Winner of The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1’s annual Young Architects Program, this year’s structure evolves over the course of the day, with responsive textiles that display subtle color in sunlight and emit glowing light after sundown. Lumen serves as the setting for the 20th season of Warm Up, MoMA PS1’s pioneering outdoor music series, incorporating a custom lighting program to complement these vibrant, popular events. Lumen will remain on view through the summer.

Made of over 1,000,000 yards of digitally knitted and robotically woven fiber, Lumen features two large-scale canopies with 1,500 cellular components and 250 hanging tubular structures that create opportunities for visitors to interact with the work. The design incorporates 100 robotically woven recycled spool stools and a misting system that responds to visitors’ proximity to produce a refreshing micro-climate. Socially and environmentally responsive, Lumen’s adaptive architecture is inspired by collective levity, play, and interaction as the structure transforms throughout the day and night, responding to the density of bodies, heat, and sunlight. The result of collaboration across disciplines, Lumen applies insights and theories from biology, materials science, mathematics, and engineering—integrating high-performing, formfitting, and adaptive materials into a structure where code, pattern, human interaction, environment, geometry, and matter operate together.

Now in its 18th edition, the Young Architects Program at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 has offered emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and present innovative projects, challenging each year’s winners to develop creative designs for a temporary, outdoor installation that provides shade, seating, and water. The architects must also work within guidelines that address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling.

“The Young Architects Program remains one of the most significant opportunities for architects and designers from across the country and the world to build challenging yet transformative ideas. This year’s finalists are no exception; their projects illustrate a diversity of approaches and refreshing ideas for architecture today,” said Sean Anderson, Associate Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “Jenny Sabin’s catalytic environment, Lumen, captured the jury’s attention for imaginatively merging radical materials with unique spaces. With innovative construction and design processes borne from a critical merging of technology and nature to precise attention to detail at every scale, Lumen will no doubt engage visitors from day to night in a series of graduated environments and experiences.”

Klaus Biesenbach, MoMA PS1 Director and MoMA Chief Curator at Large, adds, “Now in its 18th iteration, this annual competition offered jointly by the Architecture and Design Department at MoMA and MoMA PS1 continues to take risks and encourage experimentation among architects. Jenny Sabin’s Lumen is a socially and environmentally responsive structure that spans practices and disciplines in its exploratory approach to new materials. Held in tension within the walls of MoMA PS1’s courtyard, Lumen turns visitors into participants who interact through its responsiveness to temperature, sunlight, and movement.”