A Pratt Student’s Immersion in Mikvah Design

he spaces that house mikvahs have a plethora of different aesthetics, ranging from the bare bones functionality of a European shtetl to an opulent spa at the Four Seasons. But after spending a summer in Israel in which she visited many ancient and historic mikvahs in Safed and around Israel, recent art-school graduate Rachel Udkoff decided to design a reimagined mikvah space for her senior thesis project at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. Not only did the project impress and educate her professors, it led to her first professional commission designing a new mikvah in Newfoundland, Canada.

Originally from California, Udkoff now lives in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Her family encouraged her to attend Pratt. “I have a very strong foundation; I was raised Chabad and went to seminary in Safed before college,” Udkoff tells Chabad.org.

Udkoff has been interested in designing spas for some time, but after working with an interior designer in Crown Heights who suggested she look into making mikvahs her niche, Udkoff was intrigued. She returned to Safed last summer to work at the Ascent Learning Institute and began researching the area’s ancient mikvahs. She met with local mikvah expert Rabbi David Rothschild. “He told me about the many in Safed, including one that’s been covered by an abandoned mall. He told me there are seven mikvahs that the Arizal went to, and he even mapped them out for me. I visited one in a cave, and it was incredible. I took elements of it for the mikvah I designed. To visit this ancient mikvah and bring that intangibility into a concept for a new mikvah was really meaningful.”