Last summer the courtyard at P.S. 1 in Long Island City was transformed into a woolly village suggesting something out of Planet of the Apes (particularly when packed with ragged, glassy-eyed hipsters). The summer before that, it was urban farming. Today P.S.1 announced this year's winner of the Young Architects Program, which is regarded in the architecture world as a "kingmaker" of sorts; previous winners include SHoP, which was brought in to revamp the Barclays Center after Frank Gehry left the building. This time it's the Brooklyn firm SO-IL, and their winning entry is entitled "Pole Dance." Scenesters fond of P.S. 1's Warm Up parties will be quite stoked to learn that this Pole Dance is interactive.

Conceived as a participatory environment that reframes the conceptual relationship between humankind and structure, Pole Dance is an interconnected system of poles and bungees whose equilibrium is open to human action and environmental factors. Throughout the courtyard, groups of 25-foot-tall poles on 12 x 12-foot grids connected by bungee cords whose elasticity will cause the poles to gently sway, creating a steady ripple throughout the courtyard space. Each grid contains a number of playful activators, such as hammocks, pulls, misters, and rain collecting plants.
An open net covering the entire scope of the grid system will provide shelter and stabilize the movement of the poles, preventing them from exceeding a predetermined maximum pivot. A generous series of multi-colored balls will move above the net offering mutable shade and the appearance of a communal game. Dropping down at two points, the net will surround a pool and a sandpit.

Aww, a sandpit. We can already see the Craigslist missed connections this is sure to provoke: "You helped me build a magical castle that was cruelly destroyed when that evil wasted girl fell on it. Let's rebuild our kingdom together. Wear your blanket cape again!"

P.S. 1 also announced that the Young Architects Program is now focusing on designs which "address sustainability, recycling, and reuse." This year's winner had to stay within the allotted project of $85,000. Florian Idenburg, one half—with his wife Jing Liu—of SO-IL Solid Objects, tells The Archpaper, "What we wanted to do is propose a structure that was constantly trying to find its balance as it was influenced by people and outside forces. It's a take on the wider world, where we're always trying to find balance in our lives and in everything around us."