COSMO: Give me a pipe and I will move/celebrate the Earth
by Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation

Winner of the 2015 Young Architects Program at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, New York.

More than 2 billion gallons of water circulate everyday beneath New York City. COSMO is a movable artifact, made out of customized irrigation components, to make visible and enjoyable the so-far hidden urbanism of pipes we live by. An assemblage of ecosystems, based on advanced environmental design, engineered to filter and purify 3.000 gallons of water; eliminating suspended particles and nitrates, balancing the PH, and increasing the level of dissolved oxygen.

The United Nations estimates that by 2025 two thirds of the global population will live in countries that lack sufficient water. COSMO is designed as both an offline and an online prototype. Its purpose it to trigger awareness, and to be easily reproduced all around the world, giving people access to drinking water, and to a dialogue about it. But above all, COSMO is a party-artifact that moves to go there wherever the party happens. It is a device meant to gather people together, as pleasant and climatically comfortable as a garden and at the same time as visually rich as a mirrored disco ball. As a result of a complex biochemical design, its stretched-out plastic mesh glows automatically whenever its water has been purified. With COSMO, the party is literally lit up every time the environment is being protected.

CREDITS

COSMO

Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation

Andrés Jaque, Patrick Craine, Jocelyn Froimovich, Roberto González García

Laura Mora, Sebastian Bech-Ravn, Yannan Chen, Ilgaz Kayaalp, Nicolò Lawanski, Jorge López Conde, Senne Meesters, Jorge Noguera Facuseh, James Quick, Jarča Slamova

Research on the politics of water

Iván López Munuera

Research on urban infrastructures and water in New York

Esteban de Guido de Backer

Structure Engineering: BAC Engeneering and Consultancy Group

Xavier Aguiló i Aran, Rodrigo Martín, Jaume Vallès, Hugo Díez

Ecosystem Design: Asepma

Jochen Scheerer

Hydraulic Engineering: ARUP

Sebastian Lopez, David Dubrow

Electrical Engineering: ARUP

Michael Incontrera

Lighting Engineering

Antonia Peón-Veiga

NYU Department of Interaction Science

Arlen Bitsky, Ernie Gerardo, Hovsep Agop, Oskar Noam, Anneka Goss, Charles Deluga, Omayeli Arenyeka, Leslie Martinez, Sriya Sarkar, Nadia Palachkina, Dana Karwas

Models, web platform and app

Miguel Mesa del Castillo, Joaquín García Vincente, Anna Melgarejo, Tatiana Poggi, FABLAB, PROYECTOS ARQUITECTÓNICOS, UNIVERSIDAD DE ALICANTE, AD HOC

Photography Director: Imagen Subliminal

Miguel de Guzmán

Audiovisuals: Bollería Industrial

Paula Currás, Ana Olmedo, Eugenio Fernández Sánchez, Enrique Ventosa

Voice artist

Lee Buckley

NYC Department of Environmetal Protection

Corinne Martin

Kim Estes-Fradis

Ecosystemic Production

Michelles Hofet, Abreu Lucas, Rennie Lauren Jones, J. P. Buonocore, Yoonseok Lee, Michelle Ida Kleinman, Yannan Chen, Jiaying Fan, Dihua Yan

Botanical Advise: Queens Botanical Garden

Rebecca Wolf

Gardens and Ecosystems

Balmori Associates, Camilla Hammer, GRNASFCK, Julia Frederick, Patio Interior and Marc Pascal, Regina Galvanduque and Andrés Mier y Terán, wHY, Paula Livingstone, Sofia Armanet, Verdant Gardens

Advise

Storefront for Art and Architecture, Pepe Cobo Gallery, Queens Botanical Garden

Arquitectos: Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation

andres jaque
www.andresjaque.net

NYC
43-01 21st Street
LIC, New York
NY 11101
office.ny@offpolin.com

MADRID
(+34) 910 572 163
Calle Arriaza 6
28008, Madrid, SPAIN
office.madrid@offpolinn.com

Office for Political Innovation (OFFPOLINN) is an international architectural practice, based in New York and Madrid, working at the intersection of design, research, and critical environmental practices. The office develops projects in different scales and media, intended to bring inclusivity into the built environment.

Currently, the office works on projects for Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Art Institute of Chicago, Lafayette Anticipations, CA2M, Real Madrid, Colegio Reggio, and Grupo La Musa.

In 2016, OFFPOLINN received the Frederick Kiesler Prize from the City of Vienna; the office has also been awarded the SILVER LION for Best Research Project at the 14th Venice Biennale and with the Dionisio Hernández Gil Award.

OFFPOLINN’s projects have been the object of solo exhibitions at MoMA, MoMA PS1, MAK Vienna, Princeton University, RED CAT Cal Arts Contemporary Art Center in Los Angeles, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine de Paris, and Tabacalera in Madrid. Its work has been included in exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, ZKM (Karlsruhe), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, London Design Museum, Whitechapel Gallery (London), Z33 (Hasselt), the Schweizerisches Architektur Museum (Basel), Lisbon and Oslo architecture triennales, and the Venice, Chicago, Gwanju, and Seoul architecture biennales.

OFFPOLINN’s work has been published in the most important architectural design outlets including A+U, Bauwelt, Domus, El Croquis, The Architectural Review, Abittare, Arquitectura Viva, and in publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and El País.

Andrés Jaque
Founder Principal

Andrés Jaque founded the Office for Political Innovation in 2003. He has brought a transectional approach to architectural design; practicing architecture as the intervention on complex composites of relationships, where its agency is negotiated with the agency unfold by other entities.
Andrés Jaque is director of the Advanced Architectural Design Program at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He has also been visiting professor at Princeton University and The Cooper Union.
Andrés received his PhD in architecture from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, where he also received his M. Arch. He has been an Alfred Toepfer Stiftung’s Tessenow Stipendiat and Graham Foundation grantee. In 2018 he co-curated Manifesta 12 in Palermo.
His books include Transmaterial Politics (2017), Calculable (2016) PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society (2013), Different Kinds of Water Pouring into a Swimming Pool (2013), Dulces Arenas Cotidianas (2013), Everyday Politics (2011), and Melnikov. 1000 Autos Garage in Paris 1929 (2004). His research work has been included in publications like Perspecta, Log, Thresholds and Volume.