VIDEO: Flexible, Retractable Performance Space The Shed Being Built in Manhattan

Imagine a six-level indoor performance space so versatile that it not only can be easily reconfigured for anything from theatre to symphonies to art exhibitions, but its building frame can be rolled back to create an outdoor plaza where hundreds can enjoy lunch in the sun or an evening film screening.

That's the idea behind The Shed, a work in progress being built on Manhattan's west side and projected to open in the spring of 2019 on 30th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues.

As described at TheShed.org, the building will include "two large scale, column-free galleries that provide 25,000 square feet of museum-quality space; a 500-seat theater, event and rehearsal space; and a free lab for early-career local artists to experiment."

It will consist of a fixed building and a shell that, when contracted by rolling on rails, creates a 20,000 square-foot plaza that will be will be open public space.

Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group, the video offers a virtual tour.

Alex Poots, Founding Artistic Director and CEO of The Shed, has previously announced that they will launch a series of pre-opening initiatives to demonstrate The Shed's mission to commission and present new work by artists across all disciplines for the widest range of audiences.

Artists commissioned include Lawrence Weiner, who is producing a major new artwork that will be unveiled when the building opens. The Shed also has begun a three-year collaboration with Reggie "Regg Roc" Gray and The D.R.E.A.M. Ring (Dance Rules Everything Around Me) flexn dancers, forming a free, citywide residency program in dance activism for young people in New York. The collaboration, titled FlexNYC, will begin in fall 2016.

"The Shed supports original artists and thinkers to make new work, evolve their art forms, take risks and reflect on the significant issues of our time, building on this great city's pioneering legacy," says Poots. "Our partnerships with the legendary artist Lawrence Weiner and inspirational Reggie 'Regg Roc' Gray and The D.R.E.A.M. Ring flexn dancers begin to realize our mission to commission and present the widest range of artists, including work with neighborhood partners and communities. It is meaningful to inaugurate our program with a commission by Lawrence, this influential New York artist who also has a formative relationship with the west side docks where he worked as a teenager. We look forward to announcing more programming plans and commissions as we advance toward our opening."