How to build a simple, little, fold-away succah

I'm afraid "little" is the operative word here - as described the succah will seat only two or perhaps (with small chairs) three people. Still, a little succah is very much better than no succah at all and this design has served us well over the last few years so I thought I would share it. It's trivially easy to make, quickly and easily erected and does look exactly like a succah in a children's book.

The basic design consists of two pairs of hinged-together garden trellis. These can fold flat to be leant against a side of a shed or whatever for storage and then can be unfolded and stood up to make a perfectly robust succah. In fact, the only tool needed to erect the succah is a pair of scissors for cutting string.

Here is what you will need:

Four pieces of garden trellis, about 1 by 2 metres (actually a bit less). You'll find these don't come cheap, but bear in mind that the thing should last you a few years
Six hinges with associated wood screws
Two or three long (2 metre) lengths of bamboo and perhaps some shorter (1 metre) lengths
A roll of garden twine

Lay the trellis out in two side-by-side pairs with the vertical slats uppermost. Join the members of each pair with three hinges. They should then be able to fold flat on top of each other.

To assemble the succah:

Take each pair of trellises and unfold it to an L shape.
Put them together to make two adjacent corners of a square and where they abut overlap them by the distance between the vertical slats.
Use the twine to bind them together tightly at the top, middle and bottom where they overlap.
Then put bamboo across (from one side to the other) at least at the front and middle of the roof. The weight of the stuff you will put on top may make the bamboo sag, so if the covering is heavy you may want to use more than two of these crosswise bamboo stakes. (Best just to use light covering.) Tie the bamboo tightly in position with the twine.
If the covering consists of short pieces which are likely to fall through then you may also want to put short lengths of bamboo going from the trellis at the back to the front bamboo stake to make the holes to be filled smaller.

Er, that's it. Put the roof covering on and if you like thread some leafy stalks through the walls as well before decorating all with hanging fruit. The structure is pretty sturdy, but if it is going to fall over it will be backwards, from a wind which catches the front. Bearing this in mind, you may want to put the succah somewhere where the ground slopes slightly forward, or where there is something behind it, or where it is sheltered, or you may want to tether at least the front corners to tent pegs.

Two people can sit together in it OK. We can get three people in side by side and we've eaten a meal in which the table is in front of the succah while the participants sit inside. I have some ideas for making it bigger but I would emphasise I haven't tried these. For example, you could make three corners of a square instead of two, so the "door" was the missing fourth corner. Good luck with it.

Here is a link to a site which has instructions for building larger and more complex succoth.

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