Tuesday, December 28, 2010

sukkah city competition (summer 2010)

This past summer I was motivated to do a few sketches for a really interesting competition called "Sukkah City 2010." The task was to re-imagine a temporary religious structure erected every year during the jewish holiday, Sukkot. From the competition's website:
"Biblical in origin, the sukkah is an ephemeral, elemental shelter, erected for one week each fall, in which it is customary to share meals, entertain, sleep, and rejoice. Ostensibly the sukkah's religious function is to commemorate the temporary structures that the Israelites dwelled in during their exodus from Egypt, but it is also about universal ideas of transience and permanence as expressed in architecture. The sukkah is a means of ceremonially practicing homelessness, while at the same time remaining deeply rooted. It calls on us to acknowledge the changing of the seasons, to reconnect with an agricultural past, and to take a moment to dwell on--and dwell in--impermanence."
For me, most likely as a consequence of living in eugene for the past three years, the most evocative theme of this competition was the idea of homelessness. Questions arose about [the role of home in society] [the prospects/limitations of shelter to determine 'home']  [the significance of shelter in the act of gathering] and [what it means to be with or without home, shelter, and/or companionship].

the act of gathering informs a shape, carved from a shelter, to cultivate and enhance the act of gathering

There is something about the idea and the presence of a homeless population that feels incomplete - a combination of (a) their placement outside the boundaries of our society (which is perhaps the most vivid example of a social standard manifested by a physical, architectural reality [no roof, no walls, no service] or (b) our inability to house every human in our own societies (can we possibly be complete when people unwillingly live on the street?).

words read (top to bottom): unfinished, temporary, incomplete, impermanent, homelessness, placelessness.

I wanted this structure to feel unfinished to remind the occupant of her own incompleteness. In effect, the complete structure would allude to its own physical incompletion, drawing attention to the process and the meaning of a life through which one works continually to improve herself, the lives of those around her, and their relationships to each other.



trying to blur the lines of earth, floor, wall, roof by wrapping the structure into one continuous strand

The fun of this competition was in the interpretation of the simple, biblical rules, specifically relating to the walls and roof. In the above sketches, structural members would come from the earth, wrap the enclosed area and open to the sky, blurring the lines between floor, walls and roof. In theory this would allow for freedom of form and adherence to the guidelines through tectonic detail, color and material. 

context - union square park from a distance

Twelve winners were selected to build their structures in Union Square during the week long holiday in September. They are worth taking a look at.