The Chicago Sukkah Design Festival pairs community organizations in North Lawndale with diverse architectural designers to design and construct sukkahs, small outdoor pavilions built for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Working collaboratively, teams explore design literacy and social justice. The Festival celebrates cultural heritage and amplifies solidarity among the Jewish community who lived in Lawndale historically, the predominantly Black community living there today, and the broader city.

During the Festival days, from October 1–15, the landscape of unique sukkah structures is activated with cross-cultural public programming, bringing together intersectional pairings of neighborhood groups. After the Festival, each sukkah is relocated and permanently re-installed at the facilities of the community organizations that co-designed them, as vibrant new program spaces; for example, as a garden pergola, rooftop playscape, meditation pavilion, community memorial, and tool library.