SPXD | sukkah pavilion. detroit

INTERNATIONAL DESIGN COMPETITION

for forty years, the israelites wandered the desert. the sukkah is a built to reaffirm jewish trust in god’s providence, so we research the word sukkah in the torah and we try to understand its meanings and codes. the letters of the word sukkah, written in jewish, defines the three possible shapes of a sukkah, from minimum to optimum (two walls and half / three walls / four walls structure): סכה

by a generating process built on nature and history, we researched the best configuration able to develop a shading system hut, looking for sunlight and starlight.

nature: sukkah has to stand up to the wind. so, overturning perspective, we imagine that the wind generates the sukkah by its blowing: by wind thrust (southwards, eastwards, northwards and westwards) and by whirlwind. the wind transforms the 4 walls’ enclosure and opens doors too: the sukkah seems to be blowing in the wind (bob dylan).

history: the structure is made of shadow and light, is conceived as a theory of bamboo pipes, joined by natural ropes. the walls are juxtaposed two by two and are made of 30+10 bamboo pipes, that are intertwined by 40 horizontal bamboo pipes, configuring the roof: all the elements of the structure will represent and remind the jewish exodus time lapse in the desert.

so sukkah may be not only a way to identify themselves like jewish people, but to think about freedom, peace, knowledge and mankind existence in the nature too, as bob dylan said.