Shed-ing some light

October 21, 2009 | Bruce N. Wright

New York is the largest city in North America and, despite tight economic times, the country’s most rapidly changing city with steady development and reconstruction occurring throughout the metropolitan area. This ongoing challenge to the urban landscape has, over the decades, invited numerous efforts to protect historic buildings and districts as well as the street life of Manhattan’s many neighborhoods, most notably the sidewalks that abut construction sites. To protect not only building facades during renovation, but also pedestrians from errant construction debris or dust, the city has required contractors to erect “sheds” (scaffolding in fact, with plywood covers) often wrapped in plastic sheeting.

To create a new standard of sidewalk shed design that “improves the pedestrian experience while maintaining or exceeding the required safety standards in New York City,” the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) and the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY) launched an international competition to design the sidewalk shed of the future, with the urbanSHED competition.

The DOB and the AIANY recently announced three finalists from a competition total of 164 entries submitted by architects, engineers, designers and students from around the world. I was surprised and pleased to learn that all three finalists incorporated specialty fabric in their designs in some manner, acknowledging in effect that fabrics are naturally and historically part of the construction site aesthetic. Of particular note is “urbanCLOUD” designed by Kevin Erickson and team from KNEStudio, New York, that uses air as a structural medium to replace the heavy, dark sheds most often found throughout the city, using double membrane ETFE beams supported by light-gage aluminum frames.

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