A Harvest of Temporary Shelters

September 16, 2010

Author: Fred Bernstein

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/arts/design/17sukkah.html?_r=1&ref=religion_and_belief

Sukkahs — temporary shelters in which Jews gather to celebrate Sukkot, the harvest festival — have traditionally been made with sticks and leaves and twine. But since Buckminster Fuller created his geodesic domes, the smartest kids in architecture school have been working on their own ideas for lightweight, transportable buildings. New technologies have multiplied the possibilities.

That’s one reason the time was right for a sukkah design competition; another is that these days architects have time on their hands. Especially the young ones, who are today’s wandering Jews, a diaspora of the underemployed, their thumb drives bursting with ideas for structures with dramatic curves and angles.