A LEGACY OF ARCHITECTURAL EXCELLENCE - DESIGNING THE FUTURE
For 65 years, Yaar Architects have connected people to place, transforming every challenge into an opportunity and every place into a story
Sunday, August 28: Tali Yaar Kost, second generation in the family-led firm Yaar Architects, receives an email with an impossible deadline: to prepare a presentation on the use of artificial intelligence in the firm in the next week and a half.
Her partner at Yaar, Mushit Fidelman, replies immediately, from her summer vacation with her kids. "What's the problem? We're already doing that."
This is life at this long-established family office, where challenges ignite the imagination, and experience meets innovation.
Branding and Placemaking
Yaar Architects is a boutique firm, whose small, precise team is repeatedly entrusted with large-scale projects. The office was founded in the 1960s by Yaacov Yaar, an Israel Prize laureate in architecture, and his wife, Ora, who laid its foundations for human-centered urban design. The Israel Prize affirmed its excellence, but firm believes that a true brand is built not only on awards but also on continual renewal and persistence.
"We're not a trendy office," says Fidelman, "but we know how to brand a place, how to take an old industrial area and transform it into a vibrant urban environment."
The office atmosphere is warm and homey. Family photos hang alongside old sketches and models, with new drawings spread across the desks. Every meeting begins with open discussion and ends with excitement. "We think together — with our team, with our clients and with our consultants," says Fidelman. "Everything is collaborative and efficient."
The firm's role in the transformation of the Haifa Bay area — a major national initiative led by the Israel Land Authority — exemplifies this approach. During her first site visit in January 2018, Yaar Kost's car got stuck in the mud, appropriately marking the start of a journey of several years to turn the area's 3,600 hectare into a new urban landscape.
The 'wholesale market' project (TLV), designed between 1999 and 2008, is another milestone in the firm's history. Considered daring for its time, it is a true mixed-use complex — a school above a mall, beneath residential buildings, over a park and an urban sports center. Everything is intertwined: instead of separate zones for living, commerce and leisure, it is an integrated, vibrant urban experience, a living city within the city.
Years later, during Fashion Week 2018, Yaar Kost happened to walk past the then newly opened mall and saw lights and crowds, exactly as envisioned in the renderings still hanging in the office. "I went up to the guard, who wouldn't let me in," she recounts. "I said to him: 'Listen, I designed this!' Of course I went in... It was incredibly moving to see our 20-year-old dream come to life almost exactly as we'd planned it."
From a Legacy of Architectural Excellence
The firm's core vision is simple yet bold: converting a nuisance into a resource. An example is the Haifa Bay Gate project [correct?] — transformation of one of Israel's most polluted and flood-prone areas into a green metropolis. The plan includes rehabilitating the Kishon River, developing a network of canals and retention basins within green public spaces and establishing a metropolitan park that links Haifa with the Krayot. It is integrating flood control as part of the urban environment and creating a live-work hub, connected to neighboring cities by railway lines, and close to both airport and seaport.
"At first, people thought the idea absurd," recalls Yaar Kost. "After a close collaboration with our consulting team, however, it became clear the vision wasn't just feasible, it was the most reasonable. The same water that was once a problem will, through a runoff water management system and a blue-green network, turn this into a city that embraces nature."
Returning the Street to the People
From large-scale masterplans to the metro system and the future of public transportation in Israel's largest metropolitan area, Yaar Architects are helping transform car-dominated zones into accessible, enjoyable urban centers. The new Yoseftal Transportation Center in Holon- Bat Yam creates a continuous urban space linking rail and two metro stations. The principle is straightforward: remove car ramps and prioritize walking and cycling. That is, return the street to the people!
"The authorities made a bold decision, since we're all so used to getting into our cars," says Fidelman. With characteristic optimism, Yaar Kost adds: "Remember Tel Aviv's boulevards before the bike paths and kiosks?No one ever walked along them. And Yarkon Park? It was deserted. Today these are lively public spaces, 24/7."
This faith in gradual, meaningful change defines Yaar Architects in all its projects, from renewal of city centers like Nahariya and Kiryat Gat to redevelopment of industrial areas in Modi'in and Beersheba.
Back to the Opening Story
The impossible deadline for the AI presentation became a week of intensive collaboration with the Technion's Computational Design & Machine Learning Lab. The idea: to teach AI Yaar's style — Yaar's architectural DNA — and integrate it into their current development of parametric code for automatic building-rights calculations, modeling and professional visualization.
"Planning is like a spiral vortex," concludes Tali. "You rise, you fall, you adjust, you return — always in dialogue as you move forward."
That is the essence of Yaar Architects: 65 years of heritage infused with excitement for every new project. Between vision and technology, the firm proves that great Israeli architecture begins with passion, and endures through thought, innovation and rigorous management.
In collaboration with Yaar Architects
