9. City of Dreams Pavilion on Governors Island

Image courtesy FIGMENT

Focusing on the importance of sustainable design, the annual City of Dreams Design Competition on Governors Island asks teams to create an architectural pavilion with consideration to the environmental impact of their work. In the past, winners have reused plastic cups, discarded hangers and aluminum cans.

This year’s winner, which will be viewable starting at the FIGMENT festival June 23 and 24, is Austin+Mergold’s Oculi, a design that will repurpose disused grain silos from upstate New York. The interior of the silos will be painted with different shades of “New York sky blue,” which means that the installation interior will match the sky during certain times of the day. Following use for the project, they will then be reconstructed as an experimental housing cluster in central New York, a “House-in-a-Can.”

Hosted annually by FIGMENT and the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIANY), the City of Dreams competition is now in its 8th year.