A pavilion created from 300,000 recycled cans is coming to Governors Island this summer
“Cast & Place” is the winner of FIGMENT’s 2017 City of Dreams competition, an annual design contest that challenges architecture and design firms to build a pavilion out of recycled materials to be assembled on Governors Island and displayed during the summer. This year, it will be made out of more than 300,000 aluminum cans (the number of cans used in NYC in an hour), melted down and cast into cracked clay. According to the group’s Kickstarter page, the material will be soil excavated from the East River, recycled cans, and reclaimed wood, which will form lightweight, strong panels to provide structure and shade.
In addition to the main structure, there will be “rain-soaked reflecting pools of dredge” that “reveal the pavilion’s formwork as they dry and crack in the summer heat, inducing meditations on time, materiality, and the sources of our city,” according to Figment.
So far, the group has cast a small prototype, experimented with two methods of drying the clay, melted aluminum cans and collected glacial clay from a site in Flushing, Queens.
Made up of architects, engineers, and educators, Team Aesop created a Kickstarter page to raise money for their project and to ask for help with collecting cans. According to their site, the group plans on sourcing aluminum from New York City by working with canners, students, and the NYC community. As of today, there are $4,997 in donations, with a goal to reach $30,000 by March 27th. As part of their contributions, certain levels of supporters will receive furniture made from the pavilion once it’s disassembled.
The competition is hosted by FIGMENT, the Emerging New York Architects Committee of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter, and the Structural Engineers Association of New York. Once completed, Cast & Place’s project will be the hub of FIGMENT’s free community arts festival at Governors Island this summer.
[Via FIGMENT]
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Images courtesy of Cast & Place
