ASSEMBLY : CLIMATE WEEK NEW YORK

Assembly is a scenography created for Swissnex during Climate Week NYC 2026, the world’s largest climate event. Swissnex is the Swiss global network for education, research, and innovation, connecting Swiss and international communities through cultural and intellectual exchange. For three days, Swissnex brought together voices from the private sector, research, art and policy at Performance Space in New York’s East Village for collective thinking and dialogue around climate action.

The result of a workshop with HEAD students, the scenography was conceived around scaffolding, one of the most recognizable elements of New York’s urban landscape. Few structures are as omnipresent, versatile, and paradoxical—at once temporary and permanent, protective and obstructive, invisible and iconic. Scaffolding was reimagined not only as a tool of construction but also as a framework for encounter and collective reflection, and was transformed into a stage for new forms of gathering, dialogue, and exchange. The design followed a zero-waste approach: the scaffolding structures assembled for the event were disassembled at the end, and all materials were returned to their source.

The design drew on the morphology of the Swiss Alpine landscape, creating an immersive installation through structure, image and spatial experience. Scaffolding was transformed into three inhabitable structures symbolizing Swiss mountains, translating their topography into an architectural language of levels and elevations. Visitors were invited to use the lower levels for seating, while large LED screens above displayed moving images of the Swiss landscape, creating a living topography.