The Shed NYC

Sciame was the Construction Manager responsible for the construction of NYC’s first movable building. The Shed is at the heart of Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side and is an architecture of infrastructure with a new approach to sustainable structures. The building has no fat, only muscle. The Shed’s movable shell is made of an exposed steel diagrid frame, clad in translucent cushions of a strong and lightweight Teflon-based polymer (ETFE). This material has the thermal properties of insulating glass at a fraction of the weight. It only takes five minutes to deploy, at the click of a button. The shell weighs 8 million pounds and sits on eight wheels; the total surface contact for each wheel carrying 1 million pounds is the size of the palm of your hand. It uses the horsepower of one Prius engine. The movement is absolutely silent.

Deployed, the shell creates a 17,000 SF, light-, sound- and temperature-controlled space, named The McCourt, that can serve a variety of uses. The space accommodates an audience of 1,250 seated/2,700 standing; flexible overlap space in the two adjoining galleries of the base building allows for an expanded audience of up to 3,000. The shell’s ceiling operates as an occupiable theatrical deck with rigging and structural capacity throughout. Large operable doors on its north and east sides allow The McCourt to function as an open-air pavilion.