Chicago Sukkah Design Festival's 2nd Edition Opens

The Chicago Sukkah Design Festival pairs community organizations in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood with diverse architectural designers to design and construct sukkahs, Sukkahs are the temporary outdoor pavilions that are built during Sukkot, an autumnal Jewish holiday that celebrates the harvest and commemorates liberation. The Chicago Sukkah Design Festival celebrates how these usually temporary structures can be repurposed to build community in new contexts. It also celebrates the cultural heritage of North Lawndale and builds solidarity among the Jewish community that formerly lived there, the predominantly Black community that resides there today, and the broader Chicago community.  During the Festival, the landscape of 6 unique sukkah structures is activated with public programming. After the Festival, each sukkah is relocated and permanently re-installed at the facilities of the community organizations that co-designed them, as vibrant new program spaces; for example, as a garden pergola, rooftop playscape, heritage museum, meditation pavilion, community memorial, and tool library. The Festival is spearheaded by Assistant Professor Joseph Altshuler who serves as the artistic director and leads one of the six sukkah co-design teams. Assistant Professor Akima Brackeen also leads one of the six sukkah co-design teams. The Chicago Sukkah Design Festival is also a contribution to the Chicago Architecture Biennial‘s 5^th edition, “This is a Rehearsal.” Read more about the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival via The Architects’ Newspaper, Architectural Record, Wallpaper magazine, and CBS News.

The Festival is free and open daily to the public, and runs through October 21.