There’s no shortage of competitions that proclaim the most promising emerging architects, but few cause young designers to wait with bated breath quite like the annual announcement of finalists for the Young Architects Program (YAP)—an initiative that introduces new talents to vast, varied audiences at the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1. Every year since 2000, the institutions have selected one firm to design and build a temporary pavilion for Warm Up, the summer concert series that regularly fills the courtyard of MoMA PS1’s Long Island City campus to capacity. The structure must provide shade, seating, and a water feature to cool visitors during the summer heat—a simple prompt that gives finalists the liberty to develop unorthodox materials and forms for their proposals.
This year MoMA curator and YAP director Pedro Gadanho chose a varied crop of finalists, which include Andrés Jaque Architects/Office for Political Innovation from Madrid, Brillhart Architecture from Miami, Los Angeles–based Erin Besler, the Bittertang Farm from New York City, and Toronto’s Studio Benjamin Dillenburger. The group represents an interesting cross-section of contemporary practitioners, from firms that design buildings and furniture (like Brillhart), to theorists that pursue research through the creation of architectural objects at various scales (Studio Benjamin Dillenburger’s complex 3-D printed grottos, for example).
Though the YAP installation stands only through the summer, the commission comes with long-term benefits. The names of this year’s nominees might still sound unfamiliar, but past winners such as SHoP Architects and Work Architecture Company no longer need much introduction.
