{"id":50529,"date":"2023-11-30T09:15:59","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T08:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/?p=50529"},"modified":"2025-12-12T00:35:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:35:54","slug":"a-building-on-wheels-in-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ferrovial.com\/blog\/en\/2023\/11\/a-building-on-wheels-in-new-york-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Did you know that there’s a building on wheels in New York City?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not certain when or where the first wheel was made.<\/strong> It is believed that it was relatively late, and that by the time humans designed the first wheels, agriculture, ceramics, and musical instruments had already existed for thousands of years. What we do know is that its discovery sparked a major revolution.<\/p>\n

The wheel has allowed us to design modes of transportation and travel with them, create machines that have all kinds of uses, and fashion tools that make our lives easier. Wheels have made it possible for trains to connect the world<\/strong> and for construction systems to build cities like New York.<\/p>\n

Why not use them to transform buildings as well? New York is precisely where the operation of the railway inspired the creation of The Shed<\/strong>, a cultural center that has huge wheels that let it expand and reduce its space and adapt to the needs of each event.<\/p>\n

A nod to an industrial past<\/h2>\n

The Shed<\/a> is a cultural center in the Bloomberg Building, an eight-story building located at Hudson Yard. For the last few years, this neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan has been \u2013 and still is \u2013 the center of a redevelopment program<\/strong> that aims to leave its industrial past behind and usher in a new residential and business district.<\/p>\n

The Bloomberg Building is presented as a link between the past and the future. On the one hand, it has a mobile steel structure<\/strong> that nods to the industrial past and the importance of the railroad in this area of New York. On the other, it is home to The Shed, a cultural center that aims to be a meeting place for all kinds of creative and artistic experiences. A place that brings culture to the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The building’s eight floors were designed by architects from the Diller Scofidio + Renfro studio and built between 2015 and 2019. It houses space for museums, galleries, exhibition & concert halls, theaters<\/strong>, nightclubs, and creative laboratories. But in reality, there can be many more options, largely thanks to one of the building’s main features: its ability to expand and shrink.<\/p>\n

Eight huge railway wheels<\/h2>\n

When they designed the blueprints for the building that would house The Shed, the architects had a clear goal: this place would be agile, flexible, and multifunctional<\/strong>. The solution they came up with was for the building to house a large mobile shell that could move from the inside to the outside to increase the space enclosed.<\/p>\n