Traversing Planes

MICHAEL GRAVES & ASSOCIATES PROFESSIONAL WORK

PRINCETON SUKKAH VILLAGE, SUMMER '21

For 40 years, the Israelites wandered the wilderness, constructing Sukkahs. Like the rippling landscape of the desert sands, our Sukkah generates a vertical landscape that users would travel, trespass, and rest within. Spaces of rest are defined by a continuous interwoven structure that circumnavigates to and from a central core. In its uninterrupted vision to the stars from the ground, the core offers a singular view of the one God that has constantly watched over the traveler in their journey.

The envelope is dissected by twelve structural frames, marking the twelve tribes of Israel, united under a collective. Each bay is characteristically different, with different perforations, exposure, and nested overhangs. The condition of the human body to enter the three portals to the Sukkah, follows the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, of which it is believed that the soul consists of three parts, with the highest being neshamah - breath -, the middle being ruach - wind or spirit -, and the lowest being nefesh - repose.

Where sky and ground become one, the traveler is surrounded by a reminiscence of traversed planes, to admire and appreciate God’s protection in their journey.