About
The Chicago Sukkah Design Festival pairs community organizations in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood with diverse architectural designers to design and construct sukkahs, small outdoor pavilions built for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Working collaboratively, teams explore design literacy, social justice, and neighborhood futuring.
The Festival celebrates cultural heritage and amplifies solidarity among the Jewish community who lived in North Lawndale historically, the predominantly Black community that resides there today, and the broader Chicago community. During the Festival days, from October 6–26, 2024, the landscape of unique sukkah structures is activated with cross-cultural public programming, co-organized with the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, bringing together intersectional pairings of neighborhood groups. After the Festival, each sukkah is relocated and permanently re-installed at the facilities of the community organizations that co-designed them, as vibrant new program spaces. Examples from 2023 include a sukkah as a garden pergola, rooftop playscape, heritage museum, meditation pavilion, community memorial, and tool library kiosk.
The Chicago Sukkah Design Festival is co-hosted by:
Open Architecture Chicago
Press
2024
Festival Organizers
Artistic Director and Co-host
Could Be Design is a Chicago-based design practice directed by Joseph Altshuler and Zack Morrison that creates seriously playful spaces that initiate participation, companionship, and solidarity among multiple communities. Joseph and Zack provide curatorial leadership for the Festival as well as architectural design support for the contributing sukkah design teams and landscape visioning for the festival grounds at James Stone Freedom Square.
Community Design Director and Co-host
Architecture For Public Benefit (APB) is a mission-driven practice dedicated to making good design accessible to everyone. Guided by a collaborative process, APB partners with nonprofits and community organizations to create environments that reflect the needs and aspirations of the communities they serve. Their commitment to impactful design has been recognized by the AIA Chicago’s 2023 Design Excellence Awards and the AIA Chicago Foundation’s Roberta Feldman Architecture for Social Justice Award. APB supports the co-design workshops that are integral to the participatory sukkah development process.
Venue Director and Co-host
Lawndale Pop-Up Spot (LPUS) is a community museum in a shipping container, co-founded by Chelsea Ridley and Jonathan Kelley. LPUS is a space for exhibits featuring art, history, social issues, and more, by and for the community of North Lawndale. LPUS’s goal is to help reimagine how museums serve communities, while contributing to ongoing revitalization efforts by the North Lawndale neighborhood. LPUS coordinates the Festival’s on-site activities, and helps initiate, cultivate, and steward the community partnerships that are integral to the Festival’s mission.
Landscape & Exhibition Design
Could Be Design
Nekita Thomas
Festival Lot Steward
Stone Temple Baptist Church
Pastor Reshorna Fitzpatrick
Annamaria Leon
Outreach Assistant
Phil Kaplan
Fiscal Agent
Design Museum of Chicago
Partnerships & Public Program Curator
Open Architecture Chicago
Craig Stevenson
Rabbinic Advisory
Benj Altshuler
Natalie Shribman
Graphic Identity
Matthew Harlan
Fabrication Partner
Stolatis Fabrication
2023
Thank You to our Sponsors!
Sukkah Sustainers
Driehaus Foundation
Crown Family Philanthropies
Sukkah Partner
Innovation 80
(Cogenerational Sukkah Sponsor)
Sukkah Builders
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Sukkah Boosters
Voices: The Chicago Jewish Teen Foundation
Chicago Architecture Biennial
Sukkah Raisers
Jewish United Fund
Phil Kaplan & Marcia Bogolub
Jeff & Deb Zaluda
Sukkah Helpers
Eli Kaplan & Jamie Albrecht
Ken & Paula Weissman
Friends
Susan Sigel
Daniel Kaplan
Michael Frankenstein & Mary Pat Slowey
Stephen Siegel & Susan Bandes
Richard & Andy Amend
Sherwin Waldman & Ellen Diamond Waldman
Sari Glukin & Lance Friedmann
Get Involved!
Support local community members and and be part of a fun celebration of art, culture, and tradition by supporting the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival!
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Volunteer opportunities are currently not available.
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We’re not accepting individual donations at this time. If you would like to become a festival sponsor, please contact us.
