Student Residence, Kibutz Sassa

LOCATION: Kibbutz Sassa
PROGRAMME: Housing
SIZE: 450 sqm
STATUS: Completed – 2016
AWARD: Povzner Prize, 2017
CLIENT: Kibbutz Sassa
PHOTOGRAPHY: Tal Nissim

In recent years Kibbutz Sassa has been undergoing a wave of development that includes a significant expansion of the existing residential fabric and the rehabilitation of several central buildings that form part of the original kibbutz fabric, such as the dining hall and the clubhouse. As part of this, our office was invited to submit a proposal for the competition for the rehabilitation and development of the kibbutz's old sports complex (which we won in 2009), and later also for the competition for the renewal of the youth housing that bounds the north-eastern edge of the original kibbutz fabric (2011).
The complex consists of three identical three-storey buildings containing 36 residential units, originally designed by the technical department of HaKibbutz HaArtzi, which have always served as housing for young residents of the kibbutz, aged 19 to 30. Since the open-air corridors of the residential floors were exposed to extreme weather – from snow, as the kibbutz lies 900 meters above sea level, to hamsin heat – the kibbutz asked the architects for proposals for closing the façades in order to provide protection from the elements.
During our site visit we saw that the old buildings functioned as a collection of bedrooms only, without any shared public space. Sofas, coffee tables and other items scattered along the corridors revealed to us that social life had "migrated" out of the rooms themselves into these elongated shared spaces, in search of a suitable space for social interaction.
The absence of such a space immediately signalled to us that the narrow definition set by the kibbutz – protection from the weather – also held the opportunity to complete the social dimension missing from the buildings. Accordingly, our proposal for closing the façade was designed as an independent spatial and programmatic system (and a "parasitic" one, carrying its own weight), one meter deep, "dressed" onto the floor edges of the original building. The system is made of exposed concrete and composed of a number of moves that repeat in a changing pattern, creating a catalogue of situations that take place on the façade and within it: low seating (like a sofa) facing inward, seating at a counter facing outward, and storage (a refrigerator and more).
As a result of this move, the enclosed corridors become social spaces that encourage interaction in the shared space added to each floor. The relationship between the buildings themselves, which could previously be described as "indifferent" due to their random placement, also becomes interactive, as activity is directed toward the façades facing one another and the space between them is developed. The use of bamboo for the horizontal seating surfaces and the vertical storage surfaces adds a further layer of materiality and gives the project a personal and distinctive expression within the stone-built landscape of the kibbutz.