News and Press Releases

For Immediate Release: June 6, 2025
Contact: publicaffairs@culture.nyc.gov  

MATERIALS FOR THE ARTS OPENS NEW DESIGNER STUDIO SPACE DESIGNED AND BUILT BY CO ADAPTIVE USING 100% REUSED MATERIALS

The New Studio will House MFTA’s Designer and Artist Residencies, Young Designers Program, and Repair Program, and Bring all of MFTA’s Residency Programs Together in one Unified Space for the First Time

MFTA designer studio space. Photo courtesy of MFTA.

Photos and videos of the ribbon cutting and space are available here.  

Queens, NY – Yesterday, Materials for the Arts (MFTA), a program of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, joined CO Adaptive to cut the ribbon on a new, 4,000-square-foot, purpose-built space within the MFTA warehouse, designed and constructed by the renowned firm CO Adaptive, and dedicated to supporting the MFTA Designer-in-Residence, Young Designers, and Repair programs. In alignment with MFTA’s mission and CO Adaptive’s commitment to reducing the carbon impact of the building sector, the firm designed and built the new studio space in MFTA’s warehouse made entirely from reused, donated, and salvaged materials, sourced mostly from MFTA’s 35,000-square-foot sustainability warehouse. For the first time, the new studio space unifies all of MFTA’s pioneering residency programs in one place.

Designer studio ribbon cutting celebration. Photo courtesy of MFTA. 

“Materials for the Arts is a dynamic and inspiring place where art, creativity, sustainability, affordability, and education converge,” said NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Laurie Cumbo. “The new studio space built by CO Adaptive will elevate MFTA’s extraordinary residency programs, fostering the next generation of creators and empowering them to explore the ways that reuse can usher in a cleaner, greener, more creative NYC. It's a shining example of how environmental responsibility and the arts go hand in hand.”

“For over 40 years, Materials for the Arts has provided New York City’s creative community with the materials to fuel their programming, encouraging waste reduction while supporting artists,” said MFTA Executive Director Tara Sansone. “This new studio space is a testament to our ongoing commitment to sustainability and creative reuse and an expansion of our work within sustainable fashion. This collaboration with CO Adaptive is a natural extension of our work, providing a creative hub for our residency designers, artists, and students to thrive.”

“CO Adaptive’s design for Materials for the Arts’ new Designer-in-Residence studio underlines the opportunity to design and build within the constraints of the materials we already have,” said CO Adaptive Principal Ruth Mandl. “We were fortunate to work with Materials for the Arts, a mission-aligned client, for our first public project, who shares our vision to reduce waste, explore creative solutions, and support the arts in our city.”

Based out of its warehouse in Long Island City, Queens, MFTA’s ambitious mission is focused on collecting donations of reusable materials from businesses and individuals, making them available free of charge to its 5,000 member organizations: arts nonprofits, social service organizations, public schools, and city agencies. In addition to providing free supplies, MFTA also offers a variety of residency, education, and public programming supported by its nonprofit partner Friends of Materials for the Arts. The new studio space, created from previously under-utilized storage area in the MFTA warehouse, will bring all of MFTA’s residency programs into one, expanded space for the first time. Funding for this project was made possible through Friends of Materials for the Arts.

MFTA Designer-in-Residence studio with curved wall built from theater flats. Photo courtesy of MFTA. 

MFTA’s Designer-in-Residence program, launched in 2023, and Young Designers program, launched last year, work to support emerging fashion designers working in New York City.  MFTA Designers-in-Residence receive free studio space, and both Designers-in-Residence and Young Designers have access to free supplies and support to explore sustainability in their creative practice. MFTA’s Young Designers previously worked offsite, and this new space will now provide the program’s cohort dedicated workspace to create at Materials for the Arts. The new studio space will also provide an expanded and upgraded space for MFTA’s Designer-in-Residence. The space will also accommodate workshops for MFTA’s Repair Program, a workforce development program for high school students. The new studios are adjacent to MFTA’s Artist-in-Residence studio, and the upgrade will provide a new common area for the resident artists and designers, fostering collaboration and cross-pollination among MFTA’s residency programs.

By designing the space with re-purposed materials, CO Adaptive had the opportunity to explore a nontraditional design process. Instead of designing the space first and then searching for the materials to manifest the design, the available materials helped to inform the construction methodology. CO Adaptive also piloted an internal process called the “Sister Program” (named for the way two joists are “sistered” for strength in a retrofit project), which pairs a designer and a carpenter working closely together from the early stages of the design development process to ensure design and constructability are considered in tandem.

The re-purposed materials used for MFTA’s new studio include theater flats – lightweight, flat pieces of scenery used in stage production – of varying shapes and sizes that were donated to MFTA from a local film studio; scaffolding posts from Swing Staging LLC, a scaffolding business nearby MFTA; and reclaimed wood and cork tiles from CO Adaptive’s construction material archive, which the firm accumulates from their ongoing building projects.

A curved wall of theater flats now demarcates the Designer-in-Residence studio from the rest of the space. Painted white, the theater flats become the backdrop for displays, mood boards, and other creative endeavors of future artists who will use the space. The scaffolding posts are secured to the underside of the concrete ceiling, and re-used cork tiles from CO Adaptive’s construction material archive were incorporated into MFTA’s existing dropped ceiling. Reclaimed wood from CO Adaptive’s material archive was also used to stiffen the theater flats.

The newly designed space creates a Designer-in-Residence studio, workshop areas, exhibition space, and common areas, and integrates the existing Artist-in-Residence studio, ensuring a seamless flow between each. An existing window bridging the warehouse and the former storage area has also been reactivated, now adding visual continuity between MFTA’s warehouse and its residency spaces, and inviting MFTA’s members in the warehouse to look into and engage with the work of the artists and designers in residence. The space has been decorated with plants generously donated by Plant Specialists, a long-time donor to MFTA and FOMA, for a modern, serene, and calming environment.  

MFTA’s current Designer-in-Residence Daveed Baptiste has installed textile portraits and garments to inaugurate the space. Baptiste’s exhibition, “Soaring High,” MFTA’s first-ever fashion exhibition, chronicles his journey as a Haitian immigrant and his path from adolescence through adulthood in urban Black American society. “Soaring High” will debut on Thursday, June 12 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM in the MFTA Gallery, and the exhibition will be on view through August 15, 2025. Tours of the new studio space will be provided on June 12. MFTA has welcomed reuse designer Victor Pearlman as MFTA’s upcoming Designer-in-Residence, who will work within the new space.

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About Materials for the Arts (MFTA)

A program of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the NYC Department of Education and Friends of Materials for the Arts, MFTA is NYC’s largest reuse center supporting nonprofits with arts programming, public schools and city agencies. On average MFTA collects over 1.5 million pounds of supplies each year which it provides, free of charge, to its member organizations. In addition to providing materials, MFTA offers a series of programs supported by its non-profit partner Friends of Materials for the Arts, including the MFTA Gallery, Third Thursday public programming, and the MFTA Education Center. Learn more at www.nyc.gov/mfta.

About CO Adaptive

CO Adaptive was founded by Ruth Mandl and Bobby Johnston in 2011. They perceive architecture as the processes that make a building, rather than the final object. Their studio is concerned with how they are building; understanding their work not as the creation of a moment in time—but rather as the practices that inform the manifestation of replicable solutions.

Based in Brooklyn, New York at the historic Navy Yard, CO Adaptive is an experimental testing ground for new building technologies, material assemblies, and creative solutions to their clients’ challenges. With a growing team of 18 architecture and construction professionals supporting their efforts to improve the built environment through smart and resilient processes, CO Adaptive has a range of projects across a variety of types – from passive house residences to adaptively reused industrial spaces, community art spaces and theaters. To them, each is a unique opportunity to create something beautiful and functional while having a lighter impact on the planet. Learn more at www.coadaptive.co.