In the bible, Jews traveling the desert, after escaping slavery in Egypt, prayed for a good harvest, living in fragile huts they looked up through the crudely assembled roofs to count the stars, and invited guests real and unseen. North Lawndale, Chicago is keeping the custom. From October 5–26, the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival (CSDF) returned for its fourth edition and transformed James Stone Freedom Square into a landscape of temporary dwellings, sukkahs, reimagined as hospitable “third spaces” for gathering, rest, and repair.
Sukkot, the tradition teaches, honors both harvest and history. Families eat and sometimes sleep in sukkahs, three-walled huts with a roof of branches light enough to see the night through, so that comfort never drifts too far from gratitude. The festival’s joy lies in invitation, bringing in neighbors, travelers, elders, children. CSDF works to translate those principles into public space.
What began years ago as a cross-cultural celebration of solidarity evolved in 2025 into a neighborhood-wide strategy for community development and urban design. Over 20 days, neighbors, community organizations, designers, artists, students, and faith leaders co-created a small village of structures at the Square. This year’s festival tested how pop-up architecture could seed durable public amenities across North Lawndale.
Five sukkahs rose across James Stone Freedom Square, making a temporary village. Resolver Studio’s Crate Town stacked teal milk crates into stepped walls and benches, sturdy enough for climbing, open enough for conversation. A timber frame fastened with black steel brackets marked the threshold of Unspoken Voices, by Aaron Neal, Adel Bilal Machacca, Kimberly Ayala Najera, and Uthman Olowa with UCAN Chicago; beneath its burlap canopy, dappled light fell across fabric panels, cubbies, and a hammock strung for rest. Pedal and Pause by Gideon Schwartzman and Hugh Swiatek with Working Bikes was formed by two circular rings of plywood ribs, enclosing a continuous bench that encouraged dialogue to fold into itself. Pavilion Y, designed by Alina Nazmeeva and John David Wagner in collaboration with Theatre Y, stood out in vivacious green with two house-shaped frames wrapped in gauzy mesh that created adjoining rooms. Finally, Woven Porch by Mobile Makers and Stone Temple Baptist Church, had interlocking beams with woven panels to patterned walls with a clear, curved roof.
Drawing from North Lawndale’s shared Black and Jewish past and its ongoing story of resilience, the CSDF served as a platform for interfaith, multicultural, and multiracial collaboration. On some nearby homes, the doorframes still bear two small holes where mezuzahs once hung and several church facades in the area retain stained-glass Magen Davids from former synagogue days. In the mid-century, Jewish immigrants and Black families had both found welcome in Lawndale, their tenures overlapping schools and streets.
“The Chicago Sukkah Festival celebrates cultural heritage and amplifies solidarity among the Jewish community who lived in North Lawndale historically, the predominantly Black community that resides there today, and the broader Chicago community,” said CSDF artistic director Joseph Altshuler. “During the Festival days, the landscape of unique sukkah structures is activated with cross-cultural public programming, co-organized with the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, bringing together intersectional pairings of neighborhood groups.”
When the festival closed, the sukkahs did not vanish. Each was scheduled for relocation and permanent installation with its partner organization, where the structures would continue life as a bicycle kiosk, DJ booth, pop-up theater, healing station, or garden sanctuary. The booths had been temporary, but now they are joined to something steadier, like the classic sukkah braced to a house with a single nail.
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