Woods Bagot recently designed two kiosk for the South Street Seaport's newly-completed Riverdeck. Installed for the summer, 'Over/Under' are two curvy kiosks serving cold Heineken to overheated New Yorkers, who can soak in magnificent views of the Brooklyn Bridge and East River.
The design guidelines put forth in the master plan by SHoP Architects limited the design to an extrusion of a 2D profile. Woods Bagot conceived the kiosks as a single block split by a sinuous curve to create two complementary, wave-like volumes. One half, the 'Over' portion, arches overhead to provide shade, while 'Under' slopes downward to create a bench - and, as an unintended use, an ad hoc dance floor. A green acrylic roof filters the light, and provides Heineken branding.
Standing ten feet tall, each 150-square-foot structure consists of 800 cylinders. The individual parts were bolted together to create a shell that allows the edifices to stand without an internal frame. The effect is a bespoke lighting installation varying in multiple hues, shapes, and depths resulting from the angled curvature cut into the tubes' ends and the changing coastal environment.
'"Over/Under' was engineered and fabricated by KAMMETAL, a full-service metal fabrication company based in Brooklyn, with support from New York structural engineering company LAUFS. It was fully prefabricated before delivery to the site, starting with the 3D laser cutting of 1600 unique six-inch aluminum tubes, each labelled to aid their assembly. The pieces were then shipped to New York to receive a powder-coat finish and final assembly by KAMMETAL in Red Hook.
Photography: Woods Bagot