The building of the Welfare Department, Zichron Yaacov (2017)

For a long time I wanted to design for Zichron Yaacov. I find the warm and inviting city very challenging: finding what is the right architecture design in the 21st century when it is integrated in an area built in the beginning of the 20th century. At this moment we are planning our first one: a new building for the Welfare Department of the Municipality.

The program consists of treatment rooms, offices and waiting areas.

The plot is totally surrounded by existing buildings.

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We presented our proposal: a constraint building, an airy and transparent cube of glass. The idea was not to burden the density around it, and to notice it, it peeks through the neighboring buildings.

Its design connects to the design of the neighboring stone buildings by a stone wall that cuts through the glass cube, dividing it in two: the section of the treatment rooms in the front, and the lobby and escalators in the back.

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We presented our proposal to the conservation committee of the Municipality, discovering that our point of view differs from theirs. Today we are preparing a new proposal with a different balance between the monolithic areas and the glass openings.

 

Architects in charge: Eshed Yuval Levy, Ophir Tsarfati.