The Two Projects That Won 2015’s City of Dreams Pavilion Design Contest

Since 2007, New York’s Governor’s Island has become something of a play place for the city’s design inclined. It should come as no surprise, then, that for the architects, designers, and artists who wish to have their work showcased on island, competition is fierce. Figment’s City of Dreams Pavilion Design jury saw exactly this when a reported four hours of deliberation resulted in them awarding two winners of this year’s annual installation commission: BanG Studio and Izaskun Chinchilla Architects.

The competition (run in conjunction with the Structural Engineers Association of New York and the Emerging New York Architects Committee of the American Institute of Architects New York City Chapter) challenges designers to envision installations that provide at least 50 visitors a shaded retreat with a net-zero ecological footprint. The artists and architects must also consider the entire life cycle of the materials to be used in their proposals.

The first selected entry, Queens-based BanG Studio’s Billion Oyster Pavilion , is an artistic extension of the Billion Oyster Project, a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation offered to middle school programs that reorient their math and science curricula around marine conservation within New York Harbor. The Billion Oyster Pavilion , conceived in tandem with the New York Harbor School, will create a sensuously curving grotto from materials typically used to encourage the proliferation of oyster colonies. Custom-cast cement “reef balls,” artificial catalysts for building reef ecosystems, will provide the foundation for a canopy of nylon rope, steel rebar, and hose clamps. The design team, composed of Bryan Babak and Henry Grosman—who together boast degrees in engineering, computer science, and architecture—will assemble these industrial materials into a human-scaled reef meant to encourage both person-to-person and person-to-art interaction.

Organic Growth by Madrid’s Izaskun Chinchilla Architects aims to evoke a field of hydrangeas by repurposing disused umbrellas, table stools, bicycle wheels, and tire parts. Just as the flower “grows and morphs to remain in balance with nature,” so the pavilion will provide visitors with an adaptive experience.

Inspired by Andy Warhol’s desire to have his tombstone engraved starkly with one word—“figment”—the eponymous minds behind the City of Dreams Pavilion Design Competition wish for these ephemeral designs to have a specter beyond their concrete installation. The individual elements of the Billion Oyster Pavilion will be donated to the New York Harbor School upon being dismantled, whereas the revived detritus of Organic Growth will continue to bloom after being refurbished into carbon-neutral ornaments, furniture, and public rain shelters.

The installations will stand from June through September.