Designing for Disorientation: Temporary Architecture for Sukkot City xDC

A temporary sukkah built from pallets that invites you to allegorically reenact the recent social traumas, and reorient your perspective to uplift and heal yourself. Photo credit Prakash Patel Photography

When we were invited to create a sukkah for Sukkot City xDC, we were already thinking about disorientation. It was 2022, and the world was still reeling—physically, emotionally, politically. The project brief asked us to address housing insecurity, impermanence, and the welcoming of the stranger. In a year that felt like one long liminal space, we saw an opportunity: to craft something small, fleeting, and meaningful. A space for pause and perspective.

This sukkah was not a static object. It was an unfolding experience, a sequence of disorientation and reorientation.

What is a Sukkah?

A sukkah is a temporary, open-sided shelter built during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Traditionally made with natural materials and open to the sky, it commemorates the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness and invites reflection on themes of impermanence, hospitality, and home.

Ours would sit on the lawn of the National Building Museum, no larger than 12x12 feet. The space needed to be open on one side, partially roofed with natural materials, and large enough for two people to sit. Within these constraints, we found creative freedom.

The Material: Discarded, Elevated

We chose pallets as our primary material, salvaging urban detritus from the pandemic building boom. Often tossed aside in alleyways, these humble wooden frames became the building blocks for something unexpectedly spiritual. Their gaps allowed sunlight to slant in and air to move through, shifting with the day.

What was discarded became a space for reflection. What was humble became spiritual.

Two simple volumes—one short and dim, the other tall and bright—created a layered experience. Visitors meandered around the structure, entered through a narrow passage, and emerged into a glow of dappled light. Children instinctively ran loops through the form, laughing and shouting. Adults paused, looked up, and let their breath catch.

Choreographed Reorientation

This sukkah was not a static object. It was an unfolding experience, a sequence of disorientation and reorientation.

You approached it thinking you saw the entrance, only to find it blocked. A subtle sign redirected you. Then a dim corridor pulled your attention downward, asking for care and presence. Just when your body acclimated to the dark, the space opened. Light filtered through overlapping stars above, drawing your eyes and spirit upward.

Even the exit was a sensory moment. Your head brushed with bamboo fronds, your feet surrounded by grasses. A soft, biophilic benediction.

The Power of Temporary Architecture

This project challenged us to consider how temporary architecture can hold emotional and spiritual weight. Meant to be disassembled, it was never intended as a permanent space. But it was absolutely meant to be remembered.

Its spatial choreography—of loss, curiosity, arrival, and reflection—left behind more than a path worn into the grass. It lingered in bodies, conversations, and imaginations. It offered a different way to think about design: as an invitation to reconnect with ourselves and one another.

A Third Life for the Materials

After the sukkah came down, the pallets continued their journey. Some were sent to a local artist, others to a carpenter’s shop for reuse in a shed or garden wall. The tree that gave them life lives on through their transformation, just as the sukkah lives on in the minds of those who walked through it.

Recognized and Remembered

This project received an Award for Excellence in Design from AIA Maryland and a Merit Award for Excellence in Design from AIA Potomac Valley in the Small Projects category. We are honored by the recognition and proud to have contributed something so small, strange, and stirring to the public realm.

Sometimes, the work that disappears is the work that endures.

To see more about this award-winning installation, including images and project details, visit the full project page.