By the Book

Chicago, IL, United States

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Not All White Walls

By the Book

Chicago, IL, United States

Firm

Palmyra PLLC

Type

Cultural › Pavilion Sculpture

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2024

SIZE

0 sqft - 1000 sqft

BUDGET

$10K - 50K

Photos

Brian Griffin (4), Palmyra Geraki (4), Jordan Campbell (1)

Let's meet by the "book"!

For the 2024 edition of the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, PALMYRA worked in collaboration with Jordan Campbell of [alt_], the neighborhood non-profit Open Books North Lawndale, and the Chicago Children's Museum to create an outdoor literacy pavilion for the North Lawndale neighborhood in Chicago.

This sukkah is a haven, an inspiration, a playscape, and a landmark for the North Lawndale neighborhood and, especially, its children and their caregivers. By evoking weightlessness - book pages floating in midair - the sukkah design embodies the idea that reading transports the reader to another world and emphasizes the belief that reading can happen anywhere at any time.

Fabricated out of aluminum, the four-part installation is meant to move with the wind and respond to the bodies that might rest against its stalks. The cutouts within the aluminum sheets represent parts of letters and cast playful shadows on the ground during sunny days, while the colorful patterns on the top and bottom sides of the book pages contain letters that can be arranged and rearranged to follow one’s imagination.

After the festival, the sukkah was relocated to its permanent home on the 16th Street commercial corridor, on a site that's part of the Resilient Corridors Project. In addition to the sukkah, the site also hosts a Playful Learning Landscape installation focused on nature, water, word play, and conservation. Playful Learning Landscapes is a nationwide initiative that transforms everyday public spaces into joyful learning opportunities. Together, the site interventions aim to define and activate a welcoming, purposeful hub for local residents to foster care and connection to each other and to their public spaces.