2026
The Sukkahs
SUKKAH TEAM 01
Sukkah for Growth
Community Collaborator:
Celestial Ministries Association
Design Contributors:
Sukkah as Oasis
Sukkah for Growth is a vibrant, living sanctuary where faith takes root and community flourishes. Inspired by Psalm 127:1, the sukkah imagines the Lawndale neighborhood as a collaborative ecosystem—one where people gather to cultivate both the earth and the soul. Blending faith with creative expression, the sukkah features an interactive urban garden filled with vegetables and herbs, alongside flexible spaces for music, art, and workshops. Visitors can experience the rhythm of the neighborhood through live music and drumline performances, or gather for outdoor Bible studies, family movie nights, and fellowship. By bringing agricultural growth together with “Living the Arts Through Dreams,” the sukkah becomes more than a place of shelter: it becomes a place to plant, create, gather, and grow. It offers a tangible expression of what can happen when God builds the house—children discover their purpose, neighbors find connection, and a sustainable, creative harvest takes root.
SUKKAH TEAM 02
Play Island
Community Collaborators:
NeighborSpace and Lawndale Triangle Community Garden
Design Contributor:
Sukkah as Nature Play Pavilion
Meet Play Island, a colorful sukkah designed for gathering, creativity, and play. Wrapped in translucent panels that glow and shift with the changing light, the structure becomes a bright, inviting garden retreat. Inside, every corner offers a new possibility: a sandbox, mud kitchen, stage, climbing structure, hideaway, or place to rest. Rather than prescribing a single way to play, Play Island creates a flexible landscape that invites children to make, perform, explore, and invent their own games. Its colorful spaces encourage imagination while giving kids room to move, collaborate, and take the lead. After the festival, Play Island will find a permanent second life at Lawndale Triangle Community Garden, where it will continue as a lively gathering place for play, creativity, and community.
SUKKAH TEAM 03
Fitness Sukkah
Community Collaborators:
Lawndale Christian Health Center
Design Contributor:
Sukkah as Outdoor Exercise Station
Fitness Sukkah reimagines the sukkah form as a space for people to pause, move, and get healthy. Installed in an existing parklet at the corner of Lawndale and Ogden, the sukkah invites LCHC staff and community members to squeeze a 5–10-minute workout into their daily routines. Along the way, users can warm up, stretch, and try basic calisthenics and bodyweight exercises like pull-ups. The sukkah is organized around three primary elements. A series of bench surfaces provides places to sit, rest, stretch, and exercise. An arch-like structural frame bridges the existing path, creating a playful overhead obstacle course equipped with crossbars for pull-ups. Above, a lightweight fabric canopy provides shade and shelter for users as they move. Integrated exercise graphics demonstrate different ways to use the structure, while a QR code provides access to workout videos. These elements transform the sukkah from a temporary shelter into an active social infrastructure that makes movement visible, accessible, and fun.
Sukkah as Teen Hang-out
Daydream is a place for shade, rest, and gathering—a small pavilion designed to reward movement and close looking. Its structure is organized as a diagonal grid, with sides that alternate between solid panels, open frames, and latticework. The solid panels, made of paint-washed marine plywood, form a bold chevron pattern that shifts as you move around the structure: at certain vantage points, the graphic snaps into focus; from others, it dissolves. Ornaments resembling abstracted vines appear to weave through the pattern, amplifying the illusion of depth. The result is an optical trick operating on multiple levels, where flat graphics, structure, and ornament continually blur into one another. Inside, wooden seats nestle into the geometry, creating intimate places to sit, linger, and gather. After the Festival, Daydream will relocate to a site selected with the Spark Arts students that participated in the design. There, it will provide much-needed shade and seating while offering a visual connection to the neighborhood.
Explore
The festival will take place at James Stone Freedom Square, located at the intersection of Douglas Boulevard and Millard Avenue (3615 W Douglas Blvd, Chicago, IL 60623) with sukkahs changing location afterwards to more permanent locations around the neighborhood.