Pause Box
Rice Architecture Mini-Charrette CompetitionFollowing my position as a Competition Coordinator, co-coordinated with Jenny Heon, I joined the winning team to assist with fundraising and project management to help realize the team's design from competition entry to built structure.
Lead Designer: Ethan Chan
Team Members: Belle Carroll, Ilya Rakhlin, Maddie Bowen, Mike Hua, Jake Peacock
Pause Box is the winning design of a competition hosted by Rice Architecture in collaboration with the Rice Design Alliance and Congregation Emanu El, Houston, which called for a re-imagining of the sukkah, a temporary pavilion erected for the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
About the Design (Courtesy of the design team)
Pause Box, marries religious tradition with architectural lyricism, proposing an elegant and simple design for an ephemeral sukkah. Uninterested in bombastic formal gestures or technology, the design honors the traditional sukkah with a quiet design which receives its power on a more intimate scale. Playing with texture and transparency, the design embeds a small, semi-opaque structure within a greater shear diamond volume. The inner core is constructed of densely woven wood members, which isolate the inner box to create a secluded, contemplative space. By nesting this box within a veil of airy, translucent fabric an interstitial cloudy territory is created, neither completely interior or exterior. With a simple parted corner, to enter the sukkah is no longer a moment of crossing a hard line between out and in, but instead becomes a procession through an undefined, fluid territory with the capacity for new modes of engagement.
Pause Box, marries religious tradition with architectural lyricism, proposing an elegant and simple design for an ephemeral sukkah. Uninterested in bombastic formal gestures or technology, the design honors the traditional sukkah with a quiet design which receives its power on a more intimate scale. Playing with texture and transparency, the design embeds a small, semi-opaque structure within a greater shear diamond volume. The inner core is constructed of densely woven wood members, which isolate the inner box to create a secluded, contemplative space. By nesting this box within a veil of airy, translucent fabric an interstitial cloudy territory is created, neither completely interior or exterior. With a simple parted corner, to enter the sukkah is no longer a moment of crossing a hard line between out and in, but instead becomes a procession through an undefined, fluid territory with the capacity for new modes of engagement.
The internal box is constructed of repeated wood members which allow strips of light to filter through. The semi-solid wall creates a sense of solitude without implying isolation. The outer veil is suspended from the roof, softly draped and floating off the ground such that it is free to flutter in the wind. The contrasts between hard and soft, opaque and transparent, heavy and weightless, and light and shadow produce a dynamic yet delicate environment, promoting an experience of intimacy, contemplation, and togetherness without being too prescriptive.
Photography by Ethan Chan and Ilya Rakhlin