Peres Peace Center

designed by Tema /

Location: Israel / Type: Waterfronts / Built: 2011 /
Show on Google Maps / Published on November 29, 2011

The current landscape scheme for the Peres center for peace assimilates the architectural layered tectonics of the building, by extending the layering aesthetic into the landscape. The building and ground aspire to blend into a formed layered site, not unlike the surrounding sand stone cliffs. The vegetation and terraces are orchestrated in a fashion further accentuating the receding landscape layers, away from the water line. The building materials used for articulating the layers, are repeated in the landscape, yet slightly altered. Thus the concrete façade appear as alternating shades of gray to green gravel, and the glass panels appear as glittering white glass pebbles which engage with the Mediterranean sunlight.

A linear axis connects visually and physically the pedestrian movement from the city’s sidewalk down and along the building’s northern façade to an open overlook towards the sea, hovering just above an existing British mandate wall. The sunken parking structure has been placed and shaped in the landscape so as to create an adjacent “negative space”, whose dimensions replicate the podium on which the building stands. The landscaped roof of the parking structure will further enhance the object quality of the building by creating a counter object – a framed garden. A sculptural wooden plaza, which will sustain a formal presence of its own acting like a picture-garden upon which the center’s workers will look during the day and engage in during activities with children and visitors.

Landscape Architecture: Tema
Cost: 10 million NIS cca 2 million euros
Project completion year: 2011
Client: The Peres Peace Center
Area: 8000 square meters
Building Architects – Massimiliano Fuksas, Yoav Meser
Photography: Peter Szmuk, Lital Fabian
Text: Tema