philadelphia PENNSYLVANIA
University of Pennsylvania, Stuart Weitzman School of Design
Critic: Nate HUME

Located in Industry City, NYC, this urban apiary, restaurant, and food production center harnesses the neighborhood’s industrial past, rethinking manufacturing processes today in relation to food consumption and distribution. Driven by the activated, public interstitial spaces between the re-developed manufacturing warehouses on site, sliver spaces break up a series of seemingly heavy, disparate volumes suspended above ground. The two systems at play – the tectonic frame and the stereotomic mass – act in synchronized juxtaposition, creating an interplay of intersecting volumes, frames of figural foliage, and atmospheric voids that simultaneously create and break physical tensions, moments, and visuals. The convergence of the two systems culminates in a field of honeybee-inhabited greenery that extends vertically and orthogonally, spanning throughout the structure and bridging the slivers. The moiré array of frames act as a framework for vegetation and subvert the brutalist notion elicited by the post-industrial materiality that clads the façade of the building, allowing for an open ground plane to become inhabited. The hypothesis of urban nature is tested against the frameworks of food production and manufacturing where the threshold between the three is blurred through confounding interior and exterior delineations. The building’s novel experience and spatial qualities speak to the intricacies, symbiotic nature, and feedback loop of bees as pollinators in the larger ecosystem.

sP: What or who influenced this project?
CS+ML: We were intrigued by a series of paintings by Laura Owens in which a seemingly rigid framework is broken down, subverted and revealed by shapes and pieces. We extensively researched food accelerators like Union Kitchen and experimental food concept spaces like Renee Redzeppi’s Noma Food Lab or Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli. Graphically, we were inspired by Barbara Stauffacher Soloman’s Supergraphics. Architecturally we referenced Snøhetta’s UNDER restaurant & marine biology center, 3XN’s Sydney Fish Market, James Wines’ BEST stores, Herzog & deMeuron’s Barcelona Forum, Thaddeus Wolfe’s material explorations, and sculptor Edoardo Tresoldi’s wire mesh architectural sculptures.

sP: What were you reading / listening to / watching while developing this project?
CS+ML: David Gissen, “Subnature, Architecture’s Other Environments”; Robert Venturi, “Complexity and Contradiction”; Sylvia Lavin, “The Raw and the Cooked”; Netflix’s Chef’s Table; Netflix + Hulu’s Fyre Festival documentaries

sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?
CS+ML: Herzog and deMeuron; Henning Larsen; 3XN; Snøhetta; Snarkitecture; Rachel Armstrong; BairBalliet; Rachel Whiteread; Frank Stella