PROJECT Reorienting the Pallet
ARCHITECT Knu Design, LLC and Cedar Architecture
LOCATION  Washington, District of Columbia US

PROJECT COMPLETION DATE  9/17/2021
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN TEAM  Scott Knudson, Knu Design LLC and Deborah Buelow, Cedar Architecture
OWNER/CLIENT Capital Jewish Museum and National Building Museum
CONTRACTOR/CONSTRUCTION MANAGER  Cedar Architecture / Cory Sanna
PHOTOGRAPHER  Prakash Patel Photography
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
CIVIL ENGINEER
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER Meyer Consulting Engineers / Sanjoy Bose
MECHANICAL ENGINEER
ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
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SUMMARY DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT
These days are hard to navigate. We’ve entered a new wilderness. Alternate facts, Lockdown, say their names, UFO, Zoom, Jan 6, reopening, variant, withdrawal, Uvalde, court activism. Disorientation is the most predictable guidepost some have. Reorientation is required. This temporary space recalls ephemerality while reorienting perceptions and renewing the spirit.

We offer a simple place of humble means to reenact, reorient, and rediscover the stranger you may have become to yourself. A sukkah built for the National Capital Jewish Museum's Sukkah City x DC event. Designed as 2 simple boxes that create a series of experience, and built of pallets - urban discards, now elevated. What was ignored is now the focus and creates an inspiring place of renewal. For just $1,500!

The design addressed inequities exacerbated during the pandemic, and represented the ideas of home and displacement while dwelling on impermanence. We created a place to reemerge from our recent disorientations as a community and be inspired.

Built with the detritus of gentrification, its embodied duality is expressed through short/tall, dark/light, open/closed volumes. Emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being benefit from spatial choreography: after navigating a darkened passage, looking down, an interior glow causes your body to pause and look up - layers of stars create spaces through which your eyes dance. This bodily reorientation changes one’s perspective. Instinctive responses of pleasure range from a soft exhale to a running commentary. Many returned often to enjoy the transformation.

JURY COMMENTS (If applicable)

While to a degree expected in this type of project, the austerity and ingenuity of this project was delightful and inspired. The resourcefulness of the material selections and their reorganization deserve recognition, while the spatial and experiential effects exceeded their modest origins.

MEDIA FOR DOWNLOAD
Project PDF

IMAGES (Captions and Photographer Credit)
1. A temporary sukkah built from pallets that invites you to allegorically reenact the recent social traumas, and reorient your perspective to uplift and heal yourself. Photo credit Prakash Patel Photography
2. After passing through a low dark volume, the space draws your head up to transform your outlook. Photo credit Prakash Patel Photography
3. As you approach what appears to be an inviting space, you are obstructed by planters and micro-signage, disorienting you to wander around and find the proper path in, a low dark meandering path. Photo credit Prakash Patel Photography
4. The entrance facade is coarse and foreboding, a necessary part of the transformation caused by the spatial choreography. Photo credit Prakash Patel Photography
5. The contrast of darkly-painted exterior shell for the low volume and the bright interior of the tall volume both play with dappled light.
6. Photo credit Prakash Patel Photography
7. As people pass through the entry corridor, they tend to be hunched prior to arrival in the tall bright space. Photo credit Prakash Patel Photography
8. The sun shines through the pallets and animates the tower.