Arts Faculty, Haifa

LOCATION: Haifa

PROGRAMME: Academy

STATUS: Competition - 2002

CLIENT: Haifa University

Like other universities in the world, Haifa University is developing a new type of dialogue between the campus and its environment, and is establishing its position as a major player in the Haifa metropolitan.
The competition brief demanded open facilities that invite external public alongside internal functions. This illustrates the University’s desire to form the dialogue between campus and city.
Characterization of this dialogue is the most significant product of the proposal, and is discussed on three different levels:
1. The campus – a closed institute holding within it an autonomic world. Intentionally defined, and detached the campus creates as sterile internal academic world, aimed to examine and define the exterior – the world of multi-layered phenomena, contrasts, and dreams viewed from the city at its feet.
2. The site – transformed from a peripheral part of the campus to the main entrance, connecting between public transportation, the IBM building, the projects proposed within it and the existing buildings. The site is evolves into the central meeting point between “city” and “campus”, between academic and urban cultural activities.
3. The User – the campus as a point of attraction and activity for the two main users – “tenant” and “guest”, student and visitor, manufacturer of culture and consumer of culture.

The site is transformed from the campus “tail” to its “head”, replacing the parking lots with the main entrance. The new “head” is attached to the body of a functioning campus with a clear identity. Therefore the connection between the two must, on the one hand be functionally solved, and on the other must be aware of its implications on the existing body.
I.e. interference at the “edge” defined the relation between campus and city, manufacturer and consumer, new and old buildings, and naturally defines the relation to the view – skyline, forest, sea, ground.