On the corner of 56th and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, for Prada’s Fifth Avenue store veteran design studio 2×4 delivered a temporary facade that makes scaffolding a fashionable accessory. A double-layer scrim comprised of offset architectural fabrics, in a shade of Prada green, generates a shimmering moiré effect that is monolithic at a distance and semitransparent upon approach. It’s the latest effort by a brand to take an overlooked condition of the urban cityscape and transform it into a hybrid of art and architecture.
2×4 is no stranger to Prada’s design philosophy, sporting a 30-year history of collaboration with the fashion house. “That continuity has allowed us to keep building on certain ideas, especially around architectural surface and pattern-making,” Christopher Kupski, principal at 2×4, told AN. “This is back to the idea of what Prada is all about: It’s functional but it’s also ornamental, it’s industrial but it’s refined, it’s mundane but has these uncanny kinds of qualities.”
The outer layer of the facade is Valmex mesh—an extremely tight polyethersulfone base fabric with vinyl coating, protected by a polyvinylidene fluoride thermoplastic top finish. Its vibrant pattern was derived from that of typical construction fencing. Its inner layer is a much denser vinyl mesh weave with a muted variant of the design with black accents at 90 percent scale.
The contrast between these layers is the key to creating the moiré effect of the facade, as is the finely calibrated one foot distance between the two sheets of fabric. These scales and measurements were the result of continuous experimentation with a five-bay-by-five-bay mockup in Spring Scaffolding’s yard on Long Island.
A custom outrigger system unseen in typical scaffolding structures was also implemented. “Because we were attaching the back layer of mesh to this base scaffolding layer we needed another layer of structure outboard that connects the outer Valmex mesh,” Kupski explained. A series of vertical pipes extended off of the outriggers allows for the perfect alignment of the two layers of fabrics. Should this alignment be even a degree off—as the designers discovered in the mock ups—the moiré illusion would not be achieved. “We were very careful that a partial pattern was never displayed,” Kupski added.
Because of the gargantuan scale of the fabric sheets (measuring 125 feet by 16 feet), coordination and labeling of the layers was essential. Exchanging the position of two unrolled scrim layers over 100 feet long is difficult enough in a scaffolding yard; in the middle of Midtown Manhattan, it would be impossible.
In New York City, the redesign of sidewalk sheds has been long discussed. In November, Eric Adams’s administration and New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) shared renderings of new shed designs by PAU and Arup that invite color and natural light into the maligned construction structures. For Prada, a custom shed assembly provides a more open view of its storefront than typical scaffolding permits. At night, internal LED lights, again atypical in regard to traditional scaffolding, illuminate the facade from the inside.
This complicated system produces an entrancing effect—as pedestrians in the crush of Fifth Avenue inertia speed by, they inevitably crane their heads up toward the facade and admire the hard-won results. “We know from working with graphics that a lot of these variables have to be carefully calibrated,” said Kupski. “But in this project, it was even more so than we anticipated.”
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