Typology Public structure and gathering space

location.  Ramat Yishai  Israel

Area 2500 square meters

 

Designed in collaboration with architect Irad Shomroni

 

A community complex with dual roles.

Ramat Yishai is a community with a strong local identity and a rich community life.
The Yad LaBanim complex is located at the entrance to the settlement and is the beginning of the commercial and cultural axis of the settlement.
In this location, we sought to create a complex with a dominant community character - inviting and intriguing, connected to the outside and the environment and contains diverse meeting places for a wide audience of users.

Another key feature of the complex is the duplication of its function.
This duplication appears on different levels - the Yad LaBanim Center as a center of memory and commemoration in the face of vibrant functions, formal ceremonial activities in the face of informal daily activities, a closed structure containing an orderly program in front of an open garden containing a freer program.
These duplications were a factor in the design of the complex. We asked to present them in the various components of the compound.

 

An open garden and a structure woven into it.

The building and the garden are intertwined. The structural mass is partly delimiting and partly hovering over the open spaces.
The position of the building on the lot preserves and reinforces the qualities and feeling of an open and inviting garden - the building plan is minimal and only slightly larger than the existing shelter plan. The many trees that exist in the lot are preserved. Free movement from all directions to and from the field is maintained.
The building is woven into the garden - a look at the compound from the entrance to the settlement reveals only glimpses of the building among the trees that create curiosity and interest. The structure integrates and is assimilated into its immediate surroundings. The foyer to the building, the library and the activity classrooms are in direct and high-quality connection to the open space.
The rich relationship between the building and its immediate surroundings creates different and varied meeting places for visitors and the Ramat Yishai community - inside and outside the building, shaded and exposed to light, for groups and individuals, formal and informal.

 

Every day, commemoration and remembrance

The components of the complex each contain both the ceremonial and day-to-day activities.
From the natural and informal garden topography, benches rise which are grouped into an orderly amphitheater designed for multi-participant ceremonies.
In the northwest corner of the lot, the building is adjacent to the ground and connects to day-to-day activities on Harez Public Street and the nearby Meir Park. Passers-by are invited to peek into the depths of the library, the playful and informal area of the library designed for story hours and group reading.
From this corner of the plot the structure gradually rises from the ground, like a hand growing from the ground to the sky - a white hand.
The foyer of the building connects the library on the lower floor to the activity rooms on the floating upper floor. The activity rooms overlook the garden on one side and a distant view of Nahalal on the other.
The rooms enjoy a quiet place overlooking the library space from above.
At the end of the activity room lobby and in the southwest corner of a lot is the memorial room. A room dedicated to the commemoration and memory of the fallen Ramat Yishai. The memorial room overlooks the entrance to the settlement and the symbol of the settlement - the khan building, since the fallen are members of the settlement and "man is nothing but a relief of the landscape of his homeland."
This closes a circle that begins with the daily activities of Ramat Yishai and ends with the memory and history of the settlement.