First Annual Poots Competition
For two decades, The Young Architects Program (YAP) organized by MoMA PS1 purported to discern and exalt emerging architectural talent. The annual competition to transform the museum’s courtyard in advance of a series of outdoor summer performances and parties was fundamental to identifying the so-called architectural vanguard. The opportunity to produce a temporary structure and experiment with the many material and formal manifestations of a ruled surface bolstered the careers of numerous architects who are redefining New York City’s skyline today.
Sadly, the YAP was put on hiatus in 2019. Since then, the public has been at a loss for how to determine who constitutes the freshest, best, and brightest new voices in the field of architecture. In light of this gaping void, activist tastemaker Citygroup is thrilled to step in with an opportunity for emerging talent to flaunt their prowess so that we might anoint the Next Big Thing.
Although the Citygroup space is not fronted by an exclusive monumental walled courtyard, the entry to our storefront lies at the bottom of a very public reverse stoop, affectionately dubbed the poots. The poots is also host to the Citygroup Bulletin, an initiative that asks artists to respond to Citygroup activities by making an artwork that projects out toward the street and engages pedestrians as they pass by. With the first annual Poots Competition, Citygroup is soliciting design proposals for the interstitial stepped zone between the sidewalk and the collective’s indoor space.
For this initiative, the poots might be envisioned as a landscape, dunescape, playscape, wetscape, dancescape, ratscape…of communal conviviality and respite from summer sweatiness.
Featuring:
CABINET BV, Ethan Ma, Natalie Fox & Kurt Huckleberry, Queer Futures Society, Metope Studio, 10CUBE, Philip Poon, Institut für- gegen Baukultur, Takbir Fatima, Abeer Fatima, IIIIartemis, Blanco Torres, Florencia Yalale + Edwin O’Brien, Good Architects, LLC, Munjer Hashim, Holesum Studio, Office of Human Resources, Dimes Square Red, Dimes Square Blue, Aleesong, oopsa aka Office of Open Practice, LLC, Acritarchy, Unprofessional Practice, AG-ONY, Jared Orellana, STAAY Studio, The Architvists, Sebastijan Jemec, nine stories, Not for humans, Yes Mode, Chibbernoonie.