Single Thread | Sukkah City

New York City, NY, United States

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Single Thread | Sukkah City

New York City, NY, United States

Firm

Matter Architecture Practice

Type

Cultural › Pavilion Sculpture

YEAR

2010

One of twelve finalists for an open competition that drew over 600 entries - our schematic proposal had to be fabricated in less than three weeks, and installed in seven hours....

Common, single, spun, continuous, mythical, spool of, narrative, and the logic of Ariadne.

This sukkah is constructed by threading a single spool of wire around intersections of a temporary bamboo scaffold, supported by a plank floor made of reclaimed lumber. Once the continuous wire is fully unraveled from the spool, the scaffolding is removed - allowing the spun 'cloth' to settle into taut form; leaving a rigid yet porous enclosure of singular materiality and perplexing simplicity.

The frugal and temporal nature of the sukkah is thus expressed by a single line, the designer’s and craftsperson’s most simple device, both drawing and object in one. A dense 2000 lb spool of wire with its beginning and end brackets a long meandering line containing all possibilities or none. A simple line between two points nearly the length of Manhattan, or an elusive tangle of indeterminate thickness and definition.

..............................

Matter project team:
Alfred Zollinger, Sandra Wheeler, principals
Christopher Malloy, Devin Rutz, Shawn Faulkner, Eri Yamagata, Takuya Toyama, Emily Mak, Obinna Elechi, Jamie McPartland

Consulting Engineer:
Ken Tuttle, Werner Sobek

Thank you:
Jared Della Valle / Alloy Development, Alan Solomon / Sawkill Lumber Co.