Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The Shed, A Center For The Arts

THE SHED, A CENTER FOR THE ARTS

Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Rockwell Group

The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan

ARCHITECT
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Rockwell Group

CATEGORY
Exhibition Center

LEAD ARCHITECT
Diller Scofidio + Renfro

LOCATION
New York, United States

PROJECT YEAR
2019

MANUFACTURERS
Draper, Vector Foiltec

COLLABORATING ARCHITECTS
Rockwell Group

OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE
Levien & Company

MEP AND FIRE PROTECTION
Jaros Baum & Bolles

WAYFINDING
Other Means

AUDIO VISUAL CONSULTANT
Akustiks

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Sciame Construction, Structural Design, Façade Engineering And Kinetic Engineering Services: Thornton Tomasetti

KINETIC SYSTEMS CONSULTANT
Hardesty & Hanover

ACOUSTICS / AUDIO / VISUAL CONSULTANT
Akustiks

THEATER CONSULTANT
Fisher Dachs Associates

STRUCTURAL STEEL FABRICATOR
Cimolai

ETFE FABRICATOR
Vector Foiltec

FAÇADE MAINTENANCE
Entek Engineering

WATERPROOFING
James R. Gainfort

CODE CONSULTANTS
Code Consultants Inc

SECURITY CONSULTANTS
Ducibella Venter & Santore

GRAPHIC DESIGN AND WAYFINDING
Other Means

ACOUSTIC CONSULTANT
Akustiks

VERTICAL TRANSPORT CONSULTANTS
Van Deusen & Associates

SPECIFICATIONS
Construction Specifications Inc.

AUDIO VISUAL CONSULTANT
Akustiks

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Other Means

ENERGY MODELING CONSULTANT
Vidaris

LIGHTING CONSULTANT
Tillotson Design Associates

The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan

Text description provided by architect.

The Shed is a nonprofit cultural organization that commissions, develops, and presents original works of art, across all disciplines, for all audiences. The Shed’s Bloomberg Building can physically transform to support artists’ most ambitious ideas.

Its eight-level base building includes two levels of gallery space; the versatile Griffin Theater; and The Tisch Skylights, which comprise a rehearsal space, a creative lab for local artists, and a skylit event space.

The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan
The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan

The McCourt, an iconic space for large-scale performances, installations, and events, is formed when The Shed’s telescoping outer shell is deployed from over the base building and glides along rails onto the adjoining plaza.

The Shed’s open infrastructure can be permanently flexible for an unknowable future and responsive to variability in scale, media, technology, and the evolving needs of artists.

The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan
The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan

The Shed’s 120-foot tall (37 m) movable shell is made of an exposed steel diagrid frame, clad in translucent cushions of a strong and lightweight Teflon- based polymer, called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE).

This material has the thermal properties of insulating glass at a fraction of the weight. The Shed’s ETFE panels are some of the largest ever produced, measuring almost 70 feet (21 m) in length in some areas.

The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan
The Shed, A Center For The Arts

The Shed has an energy-conscious design using a radiant heating system within the plaza construction and a variable forced air heating and cooling system serving the occupied portions of the shell for maximum efficiency.

The building is designed to achieve LEEDSilver certification and to exceed New York’s energy codes by 25%, which is required of all new buildings on city-owned land or using city-provided funds.

Despite the shell’s two-million-cubic-foot interior, only the lower 30% will need to be temperature controlled. The Plaza has a radiant-heat floor plate.

The Shed, A Center For The Arts
© Iwan Baan

The Shed’s kinetic system is inspired by the industrial past of the High Line and the West Side Rail Yard.

Based on gantry cranes commonly found in shipping ports and railway systems, the kinetic system comprises a sled drive on top of the base building and bogie wheels guided along a pair of 273-foot-long (83 m) rails on Level 2 (Plaza Level).

The primary materials are structural steel, ETFE, insulated glass, and reinforced concrete.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro
T +1 212 2607971
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
601 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001, United States
Rockwell Group
T +1 212 4630334
Rockwell Group
5 Union Square W, New York, NY 10003, United States