Jewish cultural centre in London

Hi all,

The first purpose-built Jewish cultural centre in London, discussed in The Economist in Take Woody Allen, add a side of schmaltz, hold God. The building was designed by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands.

Audrey.

Sanctuary configurations

Hi all,

Some more precise requirements for sanctuary configurations are as follows:

• Regular Shabbat Friday evening and Saturday morning services = 80 – 120 people. Adjacent kiddush space required for same number of people
• Typical Bar- or Bat-mitzvah Saturday morning service = 220 – 250 people. Adjacent kiddush space required for same number of people
• Large Bar- or Bat-mitzvah Saturday morning service = 320 – 350 people. Adjacent kiddush space required for same number of people
• High holy days (around September), which includes the festivals of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) = 1,000 – 1,200 people in main sanctuary + up to 300 people in secondary sanctuary. You might mount an argument to split the larger space into 2x smaller sanctuaries, but it has to be convincing. Adjacent kiddush space would be good for Rosh Hashanah though not essential. No kiddush space required for Yom Kippur

There are some other special requirements surrounding festivals:

• Simchat Torah (coming up soon) involves a torah being unrolled to its full length in the middle of the sanctuary, which might be around 50m. People stand in a circle holding onto it, then it is rolled back to the beginning and everyone has a bit of a dance together
• Sukkot (coming up tomorrow) as you know involves building the sukkah in a courtyard, but also requires adjacent multifunctional space for family activities

I hope this clears some things up for you all.

Regards,
Warwick.

Car parking / ramps access

Hi all,

Fun times! Link to the City of Port Phillip planning scheme relating to car parking / ramps access.

Keely.

 

The (im)possibility of multiple religious identities

Hola Audrey,

Looking around I found that Rabbi Morgan actually gave a talk related to interfaith and multiple religious identities. Not much info here but maybe you can contact him to hear more…

Ale.

Geological maps

Hey Keely,

I came across these geographical maps while doing site analysis. I thought you might like to have a look to see if they can help inform your landforms / geomorphology concept.

Kat.

Design for all five senses

For those who might be interested in looking into phenomenology as part of your thesis research. I think this TED talk by Jinsop Lee might be interesting to apply into the architectural domain.

Alex.

Research readings

Hi all,

Robert Ventresca, a student of ours in 2011, has kindly volunteered the following readings for those of you interested in exploring new ideas in creative research:

Creative Research: The Theory and Practice of Research for the Creative Industries (by Hilary Collins)

On Design Research (by Peter Downton)

Material Thinking: The Theory and Practice of Creative Research (by Paul Carter)

Happy reading,
Warwick.

Tomorrow’s synagogue today

I’m loving this, so bought the book on my iPad. If you google Rabbi Hayim Herring, you can get a fair amount of stuff on him and his theories, plus reviews of the book. Very interesting reading and valuable points of interest for bringing the synagogue forward into the 21st century. You can read a good review of the book here.

Kat.

Safety at all costs

Here is a helpful article from The Age that discusses various perspectives on security for Jewish gathering places in Melbourne and internationally:

Barney Zwartz; Safety at all costs; 31st January 2012.

Keely.

Demographics

Hi everyone,

I’ve uploaded a copy of the census data for St Kilda and St Kilda East into the Dropbox folder. The information came from the Australian Bureau of Statistics census data.

Audrey.