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In case you missed it, Monday's Times previewed the winning entry in the annual competition to design P.S. 1's courtyard for the summer Warm Up series. Explained the paper:

[Pablo] Castro and [Jennifer] Lee's design features seven connected shells — what the architects call "concertinas" — that arch over the courtyard, forming a gridded dome. The shells are made of plywood and a skin of layered fiber mesh cut into hexagons, which the architects refer to as scales. The shells, which resemble hives, will create a moir pattern on the ground and the walls, the architects said.

To help cool the area, the design features curvilinear tidal pools and misters arranged in a circle around a light protected by metal mesh that Mr. Castro likened to a giant kitchen strainer. "At night, the water mist will create a cloud around it, like the Empire State Building when a storm is caught at the top," he said. "Constantly changing, amorphous shapes."

It seemed interesting and pleasant enough to us, and we sort of figured the P.S. 1 people must have at least checked out the underlying feasibility and logistics of the project. But then we received a dire email from Gawker's new climato-architectural correspondent — we'd always thought he was just some hedge-fund dude, but he's smart and we know he builds cool stuff in his spare time — warning us of the horror is that is imminently to ensue. After the jump, his apocalyptic (but strangely compelling) warnings of greenhouse effects, limited airflow, and, essentially crematoria in Long Island City.

Don't say we didn't warn you.

As one who has frequented not only PS1 summer Warm Up, but also Burning Man, i have realized that the choice of material for the top of a shade structure is critical. Not only does it determine how air flows through it, it also determines whether light is trapped and turned into heat. Although the Times description does not give details such as whether there will be sufficient gaps within the hexagonal 'layered fiber mesh' to allow the easy flow of air, the illustration implies there will not be. The net result of this will be a greenhouse effect in which visible light comes through the plastic to heat up the space below and yet heat can neither radiate out through the highly insulating fiber glass nor be carried out via convection through a porous top. Essentially these structures will be ovens, for which the misting system will be able to provide scant relief. (It has always been inadequate in the past anyway.)

You can always tell the suckers at Burning Man because they put blue instead of silver tarps on their shade structures. The blue tarps are translucent, and result in greenhouses; the silver ones don't let any light through and keep the people under them very comfortable.

This could be a similar sad case of architects disregarding the internal environments of their structures.

Going to the Museum? Take Suncreen and Get Ready to Dance [NYT]