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Urban Movement Design to Transform Hadid's MAXXI for Young Architects Program in Rome

Urban Movement Design to Transform Hadid's MAXXI for Young Architects Program in Rome

Earlier this month, we were first to bring you renderings of HWKN’s planned installation for MoMA’s P.S. 1 Young Architects Program (YAP), but now AN has learned that YAP’s counterpart in Rome has selected Urban Movement Design’s proposal for a series of sinuous benches and archways covered in grass and hanging plants as the winner to fill Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI museum piazza this June.

New York and Rome-based Urban Movement Design has proposed a series of morphing benches comprised of a wooden grid infilled with grass to wrap around the piazza forming various seating arrangements that provide new ways of experiencing the museum. Several ribbed archways covered with flowering hanging plants connect the benches. Called Unire/Unite, the installation will host the museum’s summer outdoor programs in addition to being open to the public. The benches will later be reused in other parts of Rome to form a relationship between the museum and its city.

“This is an inclusive and playful project that inspires health and movement and invites the museum visitors to live the space as a shared experience accessible to all,” the team from Urban Movement Design said in a statement. The young architecture firm is run by Robyne Kassen, Sarah Gluck, and Simone Zbudil Bonatti and focuses on accessible design that promotes well-being and physical activity.

Both Urban Movement Design’s Unire/Unite and HWKN’s Wendy will open to the public this June and a third YAP installation is planned for Santiago, Chile this December. An exhibition of all 15 finalists from the three YAP cities will also be on display. Last year’s MAXXI installation by stARTT, the first at the venue, included a grass lawn with larger-than-life synthetic tulips hovering overhead.


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