Dezeen Magazine

Performa Hub by nOffice

Berlin architects nOffice designed Performa Hub, a venue for the Performa 09 biennial held in New York earlier this month.

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The space, located on the ground floor of the new Cooper Union building designed by Morphosis, consists of a giant plywood wall that wraps around three sides of the space.

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Set into the wall are elements of programme including shelving, storage, a bookshop and an office.

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One end of the space features a steep tier of plywood seating for performance audiences.

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nOffice consists of partners Markus Miessen, Magnus Nilsson and Ralf Pflugfelder.

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See our earlier story about the Morphosis' Cooper Union building.

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Here's some text from nOffice:

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Performa Hub, designed by the Berlin-based architectural practice nOffice (partners Markus Miessen, Magnus Nilsson, Ralf Pflugfelder), unites the necessity of a central meeting point for Performa Biennial New York as well as nOffice's ongoing interest in archives and how to record and store content and programme spatially.

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The specially designed Performa Hub introduces a space in which a vast single wall becomes a container and shelving unit for a variety of Performa associated programmes, such as a screening space, a lecture hall, an office space, a bookshop, an interview booth and a lounge.

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All content is archived within the wall and can be activated by opening up specific deep sections of the wall.

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Further working on the wall’s inhabitable potential, the architects went on a day's walk along the entire territory that the Berlin wall used to span.

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The evidence of this walk is on show in the Hub's screening space.

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www.nOffice.eu

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