Bade Stageberg Cox used the metaphor of the city in developing the fair design for the Armory Show 2013. Like New York City, the fair is organized as a grid of blocks, punctuated by open spaces that provide places of social interaction. The fair is arranged with simple single-loop circulation, with generous lounge and dining spaces integrated into the gallery plan, making the show easier to navigate and relieving the common complaint of fair fatigue. Lounges serve as social spaces around which galleries are organized and are punctuated with color-coded scrim towers which serve as landmarks and points of orientation. The lounges serve as both visual respite from the art and places where impromptu performances can occur. Color is used to provide a simple and strong graphic identity, with soft silvers and grays that reference the industrial architecture of the piers. Pier 94 is clad in a black scrim that presents a bold face to the city.

BSC Architecture designed a series of special locally-produced furniture projects reinforce the distinctive experience of each lounge:

Home Made, an experimental plywood furniture project installed in the Pier 94 Coffee Bar, is a collaboration between Bade Stageberg Cox, Brooklyn Woods (a program of Brooklyn Workforce Innovations whose mission is to create living-wage career opportunities for disadvantaged New Yorkers), and See ChangeNYC (a joint Mayoral/Department of Design and Construction initiative that creates environments and experiences that help the most vulnerable New Yorkers move forward). A prototype series of table and chair sets, the basic building block of a domestic space, were fabricated locally by Brooklyn Woods, with the intention that future production would be carried out through their program that trains unemployed and low-income New Yorkers in woodworking skills, providing them with a solid foundation to begin a career in woodworking, cabinetmaking and fabrication. Designed by Bade Stageberg Cox for maximum economy – a sheet of plywood yields two chairs – and assembled by the end user without tools, the furniture engages designers and emerging fabricators in a dialog about urban manufacturing and social capital. Unlike an imported table or chair from IKEA, the entire production cycle has a positive local social impact. Following The Armory Show, the furniture will be deployed by CAMBA, a non-profit agency that works with disadvantaged New Yorkers, to people in need, including families moving from homeless shelters into housing and those recovering from Sandy.

Locked Planes is a grouping of lounge chairs assembled from fir plywood parts cut using advanced digital manufacturing tools. Deceptively simple, each chair is composed of four planes which lock together, without glue or fasteners, like a wooden puzzle.

L x W x D is a composition of six identical forms, each a geometric translation in space, which will become socially activated as it is populated by fairgoers who will use it to sit or recline.

Street Seats, a chair installation project developed by BSC for the Armory Show 2012 is reprised this year with new street finds occupying the Pier 94 Publications Lounge. Chairs and tables, found abandoned on the streets of New York, were repaired and given a new life with a coat of taxi cab yellow paint. Like the city’s residents, the furniture is an eclectic mix, and will migrate throughout the fair during its five-day run.

PROJECT TEAM: Tim Bade, Jane Stageberg, Martin Cox, Jessica Rivera Bandler

BSC is pleased to have collaborated with Roche Bobois and Tucker Robbins in the creation of the Armory Show’s lounge spaces and champagne bars.

Photography: Andy Ryan