The Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center – Assaf Harofeh

Our office was commissioned by the Israel Land Authority (ILA) and the Ministry of Health to prepare town plans for the hospitals in Israel, forming a statutory basis for their development.

In this framework, the “Yitzhak Shamir” Hospital (Assaf Harofeh) was planned in the area north of “Tzrifin” military base. The development plan for the hospital is part of an overall national plan to relocate IDF bases from the center of the country to the Negev. The relocation of “Tzrifin” base includes the construction of urban areas in its place as a continuation of projects planned by our offices for the neighboring cities of Rishon Lezion to the west and Beer Ya’akov to the south.

The “Yitzhak Shamir” Hospital was added to Beer Ya’akov municipal area which attained the status of a city through rapid growth. As part of the overall plan, it was determined that the Ministry of Agriculture would transfer to the Hospital Authority agricultural areas of about 200 dunams located south-east of the hospital and along Road 44 for the purpose of its expansion.The area of the plan is 420 dunams, the existing construction area is 150,000 square meters and has 900 beds. The plan allows for the expansion of construction by another 600,000 square meters to a total of 750,000 square meters and leaves a reserve of another 1,100,000 square meters of construction. The expansion and condensing of cities in the center of the country, especially in the near circle around the hospital, necessitates its transformation into one of the largest medical centers in the country. The expansion of the hospital will enable the transfer of additional institutions of the Ministry of Health to its area, while optimizing the operation of the institutions and land utilization.

In this framework, the mental health center and the geriatric hospital will be moved to the hospital perimeter with 1000 beds, and the hospital’s size will increase to about 1500 beds (about 600 more than currently exist). Due to its central location, the Ministry of Health intends to relocate to it the National Emergency Supplies and the Institute of Forensic Medicine and other national centers.This change requires multifaceted and flexible urban planning enabling the different institutions to co-exist in a common complex. As a result, the medical center will transform from being “secondary” to a “district” hospital, offering a wide range of medical treatments and unique specializations as a national-level medical center.

Beyond operational-medical questions, the plan also relates to the surrounding geographical-urban contexts. The hospital is located between Beer Ya’akov and Rishon Lezion, in the heart of an extensive employment and residential area (the subject of additional plans of our office), and therefore serves as a link between them. For this purpose, we increased the number of entrances from both the west and the south, and integrated the “Brown Line” of the light rail system which is planned to pass by the hospital. The light rail line has two stations and a station of the future metro line.

The medical center is an urban focal point located at the northern end of Naomi Shemer Avenue, the main urban road in the northern part of Beer Ya’akov, and in the area around its entrance is a concentration of commercial and public services. In order to maintain the environmental quality of the campus in light of the project’s required density, rules were defined for the construction of inner streets, the preservation of historical buildings, the preservation of large trees, and the creation of open public spaces for the well-being of those staying there.

Client:         The Israel Land Authority

Location:     Beer Ya’akov

Area:           1,115 Square meteres