Urban Design/ Man and Place, Man and God

Man and Place, Man and God: Urban Sustainability in Ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem

#Urbanism #Sustainability #Architecture #Social Sensitivity
Technion, Haifa

Collaboration with Yair Weiss and Igal Tartakovsky

First Prize | Aba Elhanani Award for Israeli Identity in Architecture 2011
First Prize | Uri Ben Asher Award for Sustainable Design 2011
First Prize | Zagorsky Award for Urban Design 2011

The Jewish Ultra-Orthodox society is infamous of fostering their public living environments, and usually one will find thee environments neglected, alienated and abandoned. This everyday condition seems to contradict the general Jewish thought about environmental and social sustainability as can be read in the scriptures and commentaries. It seems that this gap between theory and practice is related to the level of attachment of the Jews to their physical place, which has been culturally weakened due to the many years of Jewish life in the diaspora.

This project examines several alternatives to re-establish the relationships between man to its physical and social environment in the Land of Israel from a religious Ultra-Orthodox perspective.

The essence of the proposed master plan is to create a readable, continuous, accessible and well-defined public space – physically and programmatically – to provide the place a consolidated identity, correspondingly to the particular needs of this society as described in the Jewish literature and has been developed culturally along through history. The plan offers to physically connect the main religious public institutes and strengthen their collective dominance.

It creates a clear yet sensitive gradation from the high privacy needed in the housing areas, through communal centers, to main urban centers. The plan emphasizes walkability, safety and accessibility, and aims to create a large variety of space in different levels of intimacy and openness.

Within the plan a main public axis is proposed, that crosses the steep topography and stitches the housing clusters. This axis connects three main focal points: (1) the old industrial zone of Romema that is proposed to become an urban business center with UO orientation (CITY); (2) a communal religious center in the heart of the housing area (COMMUNITY); (3) The Romema River area that is proposed to become a regional park with Halakhic (follows the Jewish law), agricultural, educational theme (NATURE).

The axis is designed to be experiences differently from each direction. The visitors entering the neighborhood follow a series of public green terraces gradually opening to the astonishing view of HaArazim Valley. The residents of the area meet a series of public buildings partly buried in the topographic landscape. The rich system of the land-forms aims to create a visual language that enhances the relationships between the people and the place.