The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group. Image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Watch Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Shed come to life

In a new animation DS+R show how their NYC building will actually move to house a wide range of programming

What should a modern cultural institution look like? It should be architecturally impressive of course. Yet it should also adapt the way it looks – and serves its audiences – according to those varying needs. In New York, that could mean opera one minute, a photography exhibition the next, with a fashion show or a performance-art exhibition somewhere in between.

 

The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group. Image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro
The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group. Image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The Shed, by the New York architectural practice Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, in collaboration with Rockwell Group, manages to meet all those needs. Despite its modest name, the Shed – formerly the Culture Shed - is a 200,000 square foot cultural venue currently under construction on 30th street in Manhattan, beside the High Line, as part of the city’s Hudson Yards development.

It is being built to accommodate a very wide range of cultural activities, from concerts to runway shows, art exhibitions to theatrical performances. In order to do this, the building actually moves. Or, to put it more accurately, a 120-high outer shell can be wheeled out from the Shed’s six-level static base to cover the adjacent plaza, forming a huge, light-, sound-and temperature-controlled hall, to serve a variety of programming. You can watch the Shed in action in this new video, below.

 

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The stationary part of the Shed will house galleries, a theatre and a more open-purpose ‘lab’ space, for emerging artists in the city. The shell, meanwhile, will be topped with gantry cranes and can accommodate more or less anything else.

 

The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group. Image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro
The Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group. Image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

And, in another neat bit of urban design, Diller Scofidio + Renfro have crammed a lot of the Shed’s back-of-house needs and utilities into the adjacent residential building, 15 Hudson Yards, which the practice also designed in collaboration with Rockwell Group. For more innovative New York work from DS+R, get a copy of our book The High Line. And for more New York architecture get the very wonderful Selldorf Architects Portfolio and Projects.