Parametric Design furniture
August 20, 2023
Michaela Crie Stone lives and works in Rockport, Maine, where she creates pieces that push the parameters of function by blurring the lines between art, craft, and design.
The Shed Building
Project Design Credit: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Lead Architect, and Rockwell Group, Collaborating Architect
September 2020
The McCourt, The Shed’s most iconic space, is formed when the movable outer shell is deployed over the adjoining plaza to create a 17,000-square-foot light-, sound-, and temperature-controlled hall for large-scale performances, installations, and events. It can accommodate a seated audience of approximately 1,200 (900 in the lower McCourt) and a standing audience of up to 2,220.
The movable shell travels on a double-wheel track based on gantry crane technology commonly found in shipping ports and railway systems. A rack-and-pinion drive moves the shell forward and back on four single-axle and two double-axle bogie wheels that measure six feet in diameter; the deployment of the shell takes approximately five minutes.
The exposed steel diagrid frame of the movable shell is clad in translucent pillows of durable and lightweight Teflon-based polymer, called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE). With the thermal properties of insulating glass at a fraction of the weight, the translucent ETFE allows light to pass through and can withstand hurricane-force winds. Measuring almost 70 feet (21 meters) in length in some areas, The Shed’s ETFE panels are some of the largest ever produced.
