JERUSALEM_FUTURE HUB

PROJECT: ABSTRACT AND INTENT

JERUSALEM is a pivotal city that has attracted people from all over the world from different races, religions and practices. Now this city is being divided by a Wall that separates Israel and Palestine. In recent years the construction of the Wall has set both countries on an economic decline. Israel has lost 6.5 Billion dollars on the construction and loss of tourism within
3 years. Palestine has lost more than half of its labor force and 2/3 of the businesses that cater to tourism. A solution called “The ARC” is an infrastructure that has been rendered as an answer to both countries by providing critical resources to Palestine and, at the same time, providing a quick transportation for tourist and citizens that come from Israel.
This infrastructure would encounter the wall and the train station only once, and that would be in the city of Jerusalem. By placing this encounter here, the city would develop as the central hub for Israel and Palestine. In turn this strategic placement would minimize the amount of terrorism that occurs along the border due to trade. The boost of trade that would result in Jerusalem, and throughout both countries, would then create a movement of development along the wall and essentially render the wall obsolete. This project investigates the effects that a wall has on a city and what can be done to make the division temporary. By placing a train station as a segment of the wall, the wall becomes an intricate transportation hub upon which many other businesses can be integrated with and rely on. Here the wall becomes a place to travel to and not away from; here…WALL BECOMES CITY.

PROJECT: ANALYSIS

GEOPOLITICS: WHY JERUSALEM?

Geographically:
Jerusalem is located at the center of the
conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Politically:
Jerusalem is a city that is run by
two different governments.
Capitols:
Jerusalem is currently considered to be
the capitol of both Israel and Palestine.
Both sides refuse to change that since it
is a city that is a key symbol of their faith.
Tourism:
Jerusalem is the main attraction for tourists
Key City:
Jerusalem would be the only place where
the ARC would meet with The Wall.

INFRASTRUCTURE: THE ARC AND LINEAR CITIES

Recently the RAND Corp. (a think tank company) employed
Doug Suisman, an urban planner from Santa Monica,
to figure out a relief for the people in the West Bank
and Gaza. Suisman figured that with a well planned
infrastructure to travel from the north of the West Bank
to the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people would be able to
be self-sufficient by creating jobs and distributing well
needed resources to the cities of Palestine. By placing the
Train Stations outside of the historical centers, the cities
would grow in a imear fashion in order to promote a
controlled density and preservation of historical monuments.

ECONOMIES

PALESTINE IS LOSING

TOURISM IS MEASURED
THROUGH 3 KEY FACTORS:

Bed Nights in Hotels
Transportation
Tour Operators, ie. gift shops

TRANSPORTATION
2000 - 230 tourist coaches
18 tourist transportation companies
480 employees
2001 - $8 million lost
2006 - 80 coaches
150 employees
TOUR OPERATORS
Lost 90% of income

2000 - 442 shops with 900 employees

2004 - 300 shops with 500 employees
Major foreign currency generator
of East Jerusalem:

2000 - 3,500 direct jobs
2005 - less than 1,800 jobs left

HOTELS
51% of Hotels are competely or
partially closed remainder
rooms are rented out.
West Jerusalem -
Number of Bed Nights in Hotels Dropped 52%
[ 2.85 million (2000) to 1.36 million (2001) ]
East Jerusalem -
Number of Bed Nights in Hotels Dropped 82%[ 600,000 (2000) to 104,500 (2001)

THE MOST IMPORTANT ROLE:

ARC INFRASTRUCTURE, THE TRAIN STATION, AND THE CITY OF JERUSALEM

WORKING AS ONE

Currently the only way to travel from
the West Bank to Israel is to travel
by highway across check points that
are located along the wall.
These checkpoints are the locations
for much of the violence that happens
between Israelis and Palestinians.
The vectors show an East - West movement
that the mass population uses to cross into
and out of the West Bank and Israel.

HOW DO YOU DIFFUSE THIS TENSION...?

BY ROTATING THE AXIS OF TRAFFIC.

By rotating the axis of movement to
North - South and making one city the center
for this exchange it will begin to diffuse the tension
between Israelis and Palestinians.
This would allow for one city to become the hub for
the ARC - infrastructure. There is only one city that
posseses the conditions for this shift.... Jerusalem

PROJECT: SETTLEMENTS + DESIGN CONCEPTS

SETTLEMENTS

ISRAEL + PALESTINE + ISRAEL

JEWISH + MUSLIM + JEWISH

DESIGN CONCEPTS

Circulation becomes screen

Structure becomes screen:

Both Jews and Muslims use the same principals for designing the geometries of their patterns.

By taking these same principals of design and using them to define the structural elements of the train station; the architecture begins to speak the language of the city.

PROJECT: URBAN PLANNING

The current situation of the area has the wall partially built on the north and south ends, eventually meeting at the highway / checkpoint intersection.

By placing the train station in the path of the wall; the train station becomes part of the wall.

The train station becomes the only place where the ARC infrastructure, the WALL, and the city of Jerusalem meet.

As the ARC infrastructure passes through the station, it splits the building in half and as a result makes two platforms.

As a result, the train station attracts commerce and travel, which in turn, brings people from both countries towards the wall/train station.

With more buisnesses springing up around the wall/train station, more residences will follow as well as more tourists. Eventually, with both countries flourishing, tension will decrease and the need for the wall will cease to exist.

PROJECT: ARCHITECTURE

AERIAL VIEW OF TRAIN STATION WITH MAJOR HIGHWAYS AND WALL

VIEW OF TRAIN STATION FROM EXTERIOR

VIEW OF TRAIN PLATFORMS ON SECOND FLOOR

VIEW OF MAJOR HIGHWAYS CROSSING WITHIN BUILDING

INTERIOR VIEW OF MAIN ENTRANCE

INTERIOR VIEW LOOKING ONTO TRAIN PLATFORM

PLAN

SECTION

PROJECT: GENESIS

The Jerusalem project was started soon after the steel competition project, ARC Transportation Hub. This project won first prize in the National ACSA/AISC Steel Design Competition and brought along alot of questions reguarding the middle east and how well placed infrastructure can effect a country. However, the destination of this project was misplaced; it was situated next to an airport that no longer exists due to terrorist and was more than 2 miles away from Rafah City, Gaza Strip. In any case, the project brought on alot of culture study and reasoning into how the design of architecture can resemble the culture of a people.

PROJECT: PHOTOGRAPHS

The photographs posted in this entire blog are all originals and were not taken from anywhere else but Jerusalem and the neighboring villages. Please respect the photographers by not pirating the photos found here.