New York, NY - (Eruptin.com in association with Not So Polite Semite.com) - 9/19/10
'Sukkah City' is an international design competition to re-imagine the ancient phenomenon, develop new methods of material practice and parametric design, and propose radical possibilities for traditional design constraints in a contemporary urban site. Twelve finalists were selected by a panel of celebrated architects, designers, and critics to be constructed in a visionary village in Union Square Park from September 19-20, 2010 and the crowd of observers voted on their favorite.
Randi Charles (Editor-In-Chief of Not So Polite Semite.com & Lifestyle Contributor for Eruptin.com) came up from DC for the event. She had a hard time choosing her favorite so decided she'd vote online later. I picked the one with large glass windows supporting a huge tree trunk. While it wasn't the most artistic choice, I was impressed by it's structural design and definitely caught my eye upon first arriving in Union Square.
More on Sukkah:
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.
Historically, the sukkah's permanent recurrence is not as a monument, archetype, or typology, but as a set of precise parameters. The basic constraints seem simple: the structure must be temporary, have at least two and a half walls, be big enough to contain a table, and have a roof made of shade-providing organic materials through which one can see the stars. Yet a deep dialogue of historical texts intricately refines and interprets these constraints--arguing, for example, for a 27 x 27 x 38-inch minimum volume; for a maximum height of 30 feet; for walls that cannot sway more than one handbreadth; for a mineral and botanical menagerie of construction materials; and even, in one famous instance, whether it is kosher to adaptively reuse a recently deceased elephant as a wall. (It is.).  |
| A girl counts the votes in a nearby Starbucks |
The paradoxical effect of these constraints is to produce a building that is at once new and old, timely and timeless, mobile and stable, open and enclosed, homey and uncanny, comfortable and critical.
1 comment:
I was also there...I voted for the one with cardboard pieces.
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