Twelve architecturally designed and temporary buildings have been erected in New York City's Union Square Park as part of the week long Jewish festival, Sukkot. The structures are the finalists for Sukkah City, an international design competition where the ancient tradition of Sukkah is celebrated. The Sukkah is “[b]iblical in origin…an ephemeral, elemental shelter, erected for one week each fall, in which it is customary to share meals, entertain, sleep, and rejoice ... the Sukkah's religious function is to commemorate the temporary structures that the Israelites dwelled in during their exodus from Egypt, but it is also about universal ideas of transience and permanence as expressed in architecture”. The process of the competition involved each architect re-imagining the Sukkah in conjunction with a set of parameters: the structure must be temporary, have at least two and a half walls, be big enough to contain a table, and have a roof made of shade-providing organic materials through which one can see the stars. [Via Flavorwire]