Date: 2013
Client: Beth Tzedec Congregation, Calgary
Principal Investigator: Jason Johnson
Collaborator: Shaul Osadchey
Project Budget: $6000
Project Design/Build Team: Mahdiar Ghaffarian, Micheal Ting (Design & Fabrication) Kurtis Nishiyama, Kevin Spaans (Fabrication)
Funding Agencies: Beth Tzedec Congregation
Each year since 2012 a team of students has worked with the Beth Tzedec Congregation to design and build a sukkah. A sukkah is a temporary hut constructed for use during the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot. Students spend a semester designing an building the project in consultation with local Rabbi Shaul Osadchey. These projects are part of a series of projects that seek out local communities interested in supporting design research in the area of computation and digital fabrication techniques.
This proposal imagines the sukkah as a canyon in the desert and articulates the layering sandstone through a variably spaced series of horizontal planes. The carved out space allows for inhabiting the sukkah which provides temporary shelter.