Last update - 00:00 13/11/2006
Thinking outside the box
By Shani Shilo
In an ad for a new neighborhood currently under construction in Hadera, there is no mention of the city itself. The new neighborhood is marketed rather as a new exclusive community located between Caesarea and Michmoret. The fact that in that area there is a city that the "independent residential complex" is part of, does not bother the advertising people. Thus a new neighborhood is erected in a city - but its designers take pride in dissociating it from that city!
The planning of a new neighborhood in an existing city is not a simple task. For the neighborhood to be a "good" one, it has to meet two requirements; first, it has to be comfortable and convenient for those who inhabit it; second, it has to become part of the city. These requirements are not easy to fulfill. For instance, in Haifa's Carmel quarter, there are quiet green neighborhoods with a lovely view, but their connection to the city is problematic. They can be described as balloons tied to a string; each neighborhood is a balloon tied together by the string that is the Moriah route.
All the Carmel neighborhoods are connected to the city by an access road that becomes congested during rush hours. An average Haifa family must rise at dawn, leave the house, get in the car and merge into the traffic jam in order to drop off the kids and make it to work before noon.
Architect Jonathan Groswasser of YA Yashar Architects says that "when planning a neighborhood one has to think about its quality of life, and at the same time think about the way it communicates with the fabric, the rhythm and the atmosphere of the city. The simple way is to extend existing pedestrian and traffic routes into the neighborhood. The neighborhood must be a direct extension of the city; if it is cut off from its surroundings it becomes alienated and does not contribute anything to the city."
Groswasser adds that "a good neighborhood is judged by the way it handles pedestrian traffic. The objective is for residents to be able to leave their homes on foot, and not to have to use a car to get around. And for a child who needs to go to school or to a public place to be able to walk through parks without having to cross roads."
Micro to macro
According to the law an architect must plan a new neighborhood. This affords an opportunity for architects to express their profession's structural way of thinking and to go from the micro - the design of a building - to the macro - the planning of a city. But the neighborhood planning process has a way of preventing the best architects from expressing their full potential.
Dr. Aryeh Nesher, an architect and the professional director of the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University, explains that "the starting point of the planning process is a master plan and property ownership. In Israel most land is owned by the Israel Lands Administration, and therefore in many cases it's the ILA which leads the planning process. The ILA is an entrepreneur like any other private sector entrepreneur, and it is primarily driven by profit - not sustainable planning, nor the good of the country, but profit. The planning parameters are maximum units with a minimum development cost."
Nesher emphasizes that "the role of the architect in planning a neighborhood is a secondary one. The ILA issues a tender to entrepreneurial firms, which hire an architect whose weight in the planning process is equal to that of the property expert and the road planner. The use of an architect is primarily because the law requires it, and even if the architect is a professional with a broader perspective, his voice is left unheard and disregarded. The effects the neighborhood may have on the fabric of the city and on the city itself are neglected when confronted by the ILA's primary consideration: upping the number of housing units built in a year."
Nesher is pessimistic about the reality of neighborhood planning. He thinks that the problem is part of an array of planning difficulties which increase the suburban sprawl and reduce the open spaces. "The status of the architect is weakening. The Construction and Housing Ministry, which once lead and influenced the quality of building, has transferred the reigns to the private sector. The neighborhoods built today will in 10 years' time require serious renewal, and funds will then be allocated for painting and renovations, but this is not a solution to the concrete problem, only a cosmetic measure."
If Nesher tries really hard he says he can also find examples of alternatives: "Here and there are powerful mayors who try to put a stop to this. The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality is powerful and can call the shots. It has a strong planning system and therefore with the municipality's power, backed up with sound planning, the results are relatively good. The construction and the overall concept are better, but Tel Aviv is an example of a narrow market."
One of the last neighborhoods planned in Tel Aviv is the No. 1750 plan for a compound of towers located near the Arlozorov train station. Groswasser talks of the planning process: "The city's municipal construction plan was drawn up by architect Eri Goshen, and we came in on the city's behalf when they needed to set down rules for the project relating to the future Tel Aviv skyline, and to make sure no damage is caused to the city."
Goshen: "Our role, as architects, is to set construction guidelines that will be sufficiently clear and will allow control of the permit process. A 'neighborhood planning' architect sets rules to protect the neighborhood and to prevent the various towers from becoming a planning cacophony.
"The No. 1750 plan includes building regulations and three main rules: all the towers will be of clean geometric shapes, the buildings may not expand upward to enhance the property of the upper floor apartments, and balconies must be concealed by horizontal beams to prevent the 'jumping balconies' look. The outer surface must be of granite."
Location, location, location
Architect Amir Mann, an associate at the Amir Mann & Ami Shenar office who oversees final projects at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology: "The average Israeli apartment, planning-wise, air flow-wise and so on, surpasses the average Parisian apartment. We invest a lot at the individual level, but neglect the public level ... What is missing here is the planning maturity that you see in Boston, Madrid, Paris and Rome. We don't have that."
In those cities, explains Mann, "when an architect receives a job, he does not seek to show off - he has more respect for the system, a conservative approach. Conservatism at the municipal level is important. A nice thing about a city is that you cannot know who built each neighborhood; you have a continuum and a common language. In Israel each building is unrelated to the next, and this is definitely so within neighborhoods."
The absence of uniformity is visible in Modi'in, where neighborhoods are named after the architects - an honor to the profession that also testifies to problematic planning. Mann says "the professional maturity is not there yet, and the committees are lacking the ability, the skills and the power to enforce the necessary order. Entrepreneurs are mostly very powerful, and they manage to break down the plans and remove what they consider to be unnecessary humps from the project's back."
Surprisingly, Mann thinks that in spite of all the criticism of Modi'in, the city is a success. He thinks it has both good neighborhoods and not so good ones, but the bottom line is that the city has evolved, sprung roots - and people love living in it.
Despite the criticism of cities in Israel and its sprawling construction policy, Mann is still an optimist. "A city requires a vision, its leaders must know where they wish to go, otherwise entrepreneurial pressures create confused municipal patterns and a nuisance to existing neighborhoods. You have to constantly strengthen the city, and then the market also reacts and you get results."