Computer Sciences, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College

Following the preparation of the master plans for the Jaffa campus and for the Behavioral Sciences

department building the college administration requested the planning of an additional building

designated for the Computer Science school. The campus plan is such that buildings define courtyards

so that at any stage the campus will appear complete. The Computer Science building has a dual role.

One is to serve as a new and complete “wall” to the campus’s first courtyard. Together, the Computer

Science building and the Behavioral Science building constitute the first stage in the completion of the

campus and together they form the surrounding courtyard.

The second role is to form a building that satisfies its purpose, that is, constant flexibility in the

electronic infrastructure systems in relation to other components in the building that do not change.

For this purpose, the air conditioning systems in the building were separated into a vertical layer

and the communications and computing systems into a horizontal layer. In this way, one system

is not built at the expense of the volume designated for the other, and the option remains for

flexibility and constant changes in spaces intended for systems.

The Computer Sciences, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College building is designed to encourage

casual meetings, in addition to the formal encounter in the lab or in the class. For this purpose

break and rest, areas have been planned to create such meeting places. Between the lecture

halls on the ground floor, there are break areas opening to the vegetated courtyard. 

On the top floors, these areas form galleries for the main space and allow for eye contact and

meeting opportunities also in the building’s vertical section. The staff offices are located on the

top floor and they also open, from rest and meeting spaces to a roof garden. Teaching buildings

were planned to face north and south which is the convenient direction for directing light and

providing shade from the sun. In the campus plan, the courtyards are closed in the east-west

direction, the program components that do not require windows to the outside. In the Computer

Science building, the large lecture hall (320 seats) provides the western boundary of the

courtyard and is part of a system wherein each building, the special component is built as an

object with a unique shape that provides the building identification and distinction. In the

design of this object, our office used a computerized 3D model that was used in an innovative

way also in the construction and in the manufacturing of its complex steel framework.

Client:              The Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College

Location:          2 Rabenu Yeruham Street, Tel Aviv

Area:                8,500  square meters

Photography:  Amit Geron