Diller Scofidio and Renfro is a design studio founded in 1981 that covers the fields of architecture, urban design, art installation, multi-media performance, digital media and print.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro focus on cultural and civic projects, addressing the changing role of institutions and the future of cities. Based in New York City, the studio has over 100 architects, designs, artists and researchers, led by the four founding partners: Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin.

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Located in New York City’s Washington Heights neighbourhood, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Centre is part of the Columbia University Medical Centre. Completed in 2016, the building reflects a paradigm shift in medical education from passive, lecture-based instruction to team-based problem solving, while simultaneously responding to the site’s narrow footprint and tapered zoning envelope.

Diller Scofidio and Renfro completed two of the largest architecture and planning initiatives in New York City’s recent history: the adaptive reuse of an obsolete, industrial rail infrastructure into the High Line, and the transformation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ half-century-old campus.

The Hypar resolves the dual requirements of a destination restaurant and a campus green within the limited open area of Lincoln Centre’s North Plaza by stacking the two functions in a single gesture between the reflecting pool and the plaza’s north edge. A twisted plane acts as a contoured ceiling over the restaurant with views to the plaza and street, while its top surface is a publically accessible green roof of robust grasses. 

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After removing all traces of Philip Johnson’s original interior, the gutted shell is resurfaced with thin liners of varying materials that sometimes lift away to become structural, spatial, and functional elements. While the Seagram Building is considered to be the quintessential modernist glass tower, the restaurant is lodged in its stone base and is without glass, view or connection with the street. 

In 2019, the studio completed two more projects significant to New York: The Shed, the first multi-arts centre designed to commission, produce, and present all types of performing arts, visual arts, and popular culture, and the renovation and expansion of The Museum of Modern Art.

Unlike any other hotel in the Alps, the architecture of Bürchen_Mystik is conceived as a place of retreat in nature, a place of personal well–being and a place for social activity, work and concentration. The project takes advantage of Bürchen’s greatest natural assets: its high solar exposure and its stunning mountain setting.

Diller Scofidio and Renfro have been distinguished with the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture, Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential” list, the Smithsonian Institution’s 2005 National Design Award, the Medal of Honor and the President’s Award from AIA New York, and Wall Street Journal Magazine’s 2017 Architecture Innovator of the Year Award. 

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