Architects:Office Feuerman

Year:2019

Photographs:Richard Glover,Hamish McIntosh

Text description provided by the architects. By transporting Succot to the Sydney coast-line, it was important to select, not only Sydney-based architects but architects that each bring their unique voice to the discipline of architecture.

Raffaello Rosselli is our ‘Material Upcycler’, an architect who engages heavily with found, recycled and unwanted materials, taking the ordinary and making them extraordinary. Lucy Humphrey Studio is our ‘Artist-Architect’, combining her precise site-specific architecture skills with her poetic artistic methods to produce ephemeral nature-inspired installations. Other Architects (collaborating with Izabela Pluta) are our ‘Cultural Producers’, an emerging firm which not only produces ethereal effects through buildings but are deeply engaged in wider cultural discourse, through exhibitions, lectures and teaching. Urtzi Grau and Guillermo Fernandez-Abascal (collaborating with Charlotte Haywood, Leah Giblin, Selena Murray and Aunty Fran Bodkin) are our ‘International Collaborators’, a team based in Sydney, whose abundant international experience brings a critical and radical architectural outlook to Australia. Supermanoeuvre are our ‘Digital Innovators’, a practice at the forefront of all things robotic, pushing the boundaries of structural and material innovation through computational logic. Scale Architecture are our ‘Domestic Experimentalists’, a firm whose projects are rooted in ideas of domesticity and intimacy, investigating the blurred relationship between inside and outside.

At the heart of Succot is the celebration of community. A time in the year where family and friends come together to eat, drink, sing and create joyous memories together. The placement of these six different Succah in one location defines a unique public community at the heart of Sydney’s coastline.

OFFICE FEUERMAN – THE VILLAGE. A collection of six reflective tables and benches designed to respond to each of the Succah structures. The ‘Village’ encourages people to sit and gather, the mirrored top providing a reflection of the surrounding environment.

RAFFAELLO ROSSELLI ARCHITECTS – TRACE. A fundamental aspect of a Succah is its temporality. This project explores this through the duality of permanence. Large boulders are transformed through the insertion of a timber roof and wall for the festival of Succot. After the festival, with timbers removed, no longer a Succah leaving a trace and a connection to future Succot.

LUCY HUMPHREY STUDIO – DUNE. ‘Dune’ draws on the cultural history of this Succah dwelling and the coastal site of Bondi. It explores the relationship between an interior experience of refuge and the sky - the heavy and light, the grounded and weightless.

OTHER ARCHITECTS WITH IZABELLA PLUTA – INSIDE OUT SUCCAH. ‘Inside-Out Succah’ inverts the traditionally inward-facing Jewish succah. This remodelled and reorientated Succah reminds us that Jewish culture is still evolving, and invites us to spend more time observing the fragile world around us.

URTZI GRAU & GUILLERMO FERNANDEZ-ABASCAL WITH CHARLOTTE HAYWOOD, LEAH GIBLIN, SELENA MURRAY AND AUNTY FRAN BODKIN – A PORTABLE TERRITORY. Our succah is not a place; it is variable trajectories. Our succah is not an object; it is embodied systems. Our succah is a precarious wondering structure; it is a portable territory.

SUPERMANOEUVRE – SUPERSUCCAH. ‘SuperSuccah’ is a celebration of the annual process of families and communities self-building their own temporary gathering spaces with minimal means; making and remaking to strengthen the relationships between people and place.

SCALE ARCHITECTURE – MONOLITUS DOMUM. An investigation into the relationship between domestic life and public art. This intimate urban living room will create a spatial experience that plays on enclosure and outlook.

Project gallery

Project location

Address:Bondi Beach, NSW 2026, Australia