Recently, we shared Visiondivision’s Cancer City project – if you haven’t seen it, be sure to check it out as the firm’s fresh outlook results in a new kind of landscape for the animals. Moving from designing a new metropolis for crayfish, the architects have switched gears for their latest project to create a sukkah for an annual Jewish harvest festival. The proposal is part of the New York competition for Sukkah City (be sure to view the finalists here), which asked participants to re-imagine the temporary pavilion by developing new methods of material practice and parametric design. For Visiondivison’s proposal, the organic pavilion changes the conditions for social interaction and behavior within a simplistic structure of compression.
More images and more about the proposal after the break.
As the sukkah is meant to sit in Union Square in Manhattan, one of the most populated and dense places in the world, the intention is to “build something that differs in scale and pace from the rest of the city. When entering the sukkah, you automatically slow your pace and behavior and switch to a resting position due to the physical restrictions that makes up the space.”
Working within the strict constraints of the competition, such as the fact that the sukkah had to have a roof made out of branches – not bundles, the firm designed an undulating ceiling that “changes the conditions for social interaction and behavior.” The roof’s changing height limits a person’s movements as he can no longer perform under normal circumstance – ”the different heights and thickness of the roof sets the atmosphere…your strength and speed is reduced and you are no longer a potential physical threat to your surroundings.”
The illuminated pavilion changes color depending upon the thickness of the reeds, resulting in an organic pattern of light on the exterior. Once inside, the sukkah contains two interlinked rooms – a social area for dining and interactions and a more closed space for sleeping and star gazing.
