As the Wesleyan Sukkah goes up today, let’s take a trip back to 2009. This was the year that Wesleyan hired ARST 436: Architecture II, a service-learning course, to build a new Sukkah for the Wesleyan Community. From the course description:

A Sukkah is a  temporary structure erected every fall for Sukkot – the annual feast of tabernacles – the sukkah offers students a place to pray, study, eat, sleep, dwell, and socialize.

In the spring of 2009, North Studio worked with Wesleyan’s Center for Jewish Life to create a new university sukkah. In response, North Studio designed and built a structure to harmonize with the surrounding landscape – to be inviting, approachable, and intriguing to anyone walking by – while simultaneously maintaining the “intentional sacred space” and privacy expected for the sukkah’s religious users.

Beyond the requirements for its religious use, the Wesleyan Sukkah also needed to accommodate 50 people, withstand outdoor exposure, repeated assembly and disassembly, and store easily.

The WesSukkah went on to win the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2009 “Faith and Form” Award for art and architecture, landing it a spot in an AIA exhibition. To read more about the WesSukkah, click here.