Jenny Sabin Studio selected as winner of the 2017 Young Architects Program

Lumen by Jenny Sabin Studio has been named the winner of The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1’s annual Young Architects Program. Opening on June 29 in the MoMA PS1 courtyard, this year’s construction is an immersive design that evolves over the course of a day, providing a cooling respite from the midday sun and a responsive glowing light after sundown. Drawn from among five finalists, Jenny Sabin Studio’s Lumen will serve as a temporary urban landscape for the 20th season of Warm Up, MoMA PS1’s pioneering outdoor music series. Lumen will remain on view through the summer. 

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. 

Made of responsive tubular structures in a lightweight knitted fabric, Lumen features a canopy of recycled, photo-luminescent, and solar active textiles that absorb, collect, and deliver light. A misting system responds to visitors’ proximity, activating fabric stalactites that produce a refreshing micro-climate. Socially and environmentally responsive, Lumen’s multisensory environment is inspired by collective levity, play, and interaction as the structure and materials transform throughout the day and night, adapting to the densities of bodies, heat, and sunlight. 

“The Young Architects Program remains one of the most significant opportunities for architects and designers from across the country and world to build radical 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 immersive environment, Lumen, captured the jury’s attention for imaginatively merging public and private 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, “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.”

The other finalists for this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program were Bureau Spectacular (Jimenez Lai and Joanna Grant), Ania Jaworska, Office of III (Sean Canty, Ryan Golenberg and Stephanie Lin), and SCHAUM/SHIEH (Rosalyne Shieh and Troy Schaum). An exhibition of the five finalists’ proposed projects will be on view at The Museum of Modern Art over the summer, organized by Sean Anderson, Associate Curator, with Arièle Dionne-Krosnick, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has supported the Young Architects Program since 2007. In 2016, MoMA PS1 and The Museum of Modern Art were thrilled to announce that this lead sponsorship had been extended for three years, enabling the Young Architects Program to thrive and excite audiences through summer 2018.