The location of the Ziv Center, on the main roads leading from the entrance to the city to the memorial sites on Mount Herzl and Waid Vashem gives it significance and exposure on a national scale. At this crossroads, there is a lively movement of vehicles, public transport and pedestrians and it is tangent to a green axis leading to the Jerusalem Forest. All of these are exceptional conditions for the development and leveraging of the Ziv Center in its urban and national context. 

In this light, the location of the water reservoir in the corner of the site (it is not possible to build on top of it) is an opportunity to represent the water collection and recycling plant - in Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular - throughout history and up to the present day.

The presence of the reservoir will be part of an open display of the water museum that will be established there. This is with the help of the development of the reservoir roof. This open display extends along a path coming from the museum, and goes up with a suspension bridge to a green deck overlooking the square, and continues to a restaurant and a view of the city on the roof of one of the towers.

The building next to this urban square, gives an edge to the urban space and a landmark on the axis of the watershed.

As part of the Beit HaKerem neighborhood, built in the heritage of Ir Ganim, the rear part of the complex, facing the neighborhood, will be developed as a delicate and intimate texture that represents the values of the combination between building and a green environment.

The program brings together a wide range of spaces - public spaces on the scale of the city, and intimate spaces on the scale of the neighborhood. The combination of them constitutes the essence of the experience of living in the city.

Program . Urban Plan
Client . Municipality of Jerusalem
Size . 90,000 sq. meters mixed use
 2021 Status . Competition
Team . Michal Apfelberg, Gili Kesselman, Noa Zemer