02 Overstory

The North Lawndale neighborhood in Chicago has a rich history as a new home base for waves of migrating peoples arriving in the city over the past two centuries. This layered history can be read across the neighborhood fabric and nowhere is this more legible than in the porches of residential buildings that comprise this community. Stoops are adorned with plants, religious markers, and household objects that reflect Lawndale’s cultural diversity.

In the heart of the neighborhood is Sinai Hospital. The hospital was founded in 1919 and has continued to evolve to meet Lawndale’s health needs. It is a vital community resource, but the imposing presence of its ever-growing campus makes it out of scale with its neighbors, particularly along its south perimeter on a shady, tree-lined residential street.

Commissioned for the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, this pavilion was co-designed with Sinai staff and caregivers as well as local high school students participating in Sinai’s summer immersion program with the goal of providing a public stoop and canopy for the hospital’s “backyard” to break down its institutional scale.

In the same way Sinai Hospital acts as the overstory—the protective layer—for the Lawndale community, this sukkah opens up to the neighborhood on all sides and welcomes us to gather under its elevated canopy. The sukkah provides a community stoop for Sinai Hospital’s bustling campus. Under the canopy, seating takes a cue from the porches of nearby residential buildings along West 15th Place, offering a new outdoor space where everyone can reflect and gather. Just as the hospital has evolved to meet North Lawndale’s needs, this pavilion aspires to be a backdrop for the lives of those who give and receive care, as well as for the many people who continue to shape the Sinai campus and the broader Lawndale community. On the stoop you might find a nurse taking lunch, a visitor awaiting test results, a volunteer offering fresh flowers, or a passerby stopping to rest among neighbors.