Sun's District, Netanya, Israel

Ariel University, School of Architecture, Ariel

Project idea

The idea of the project is to turn a typical Israeli city - Netanya, which is in fact one big car-centric residential neighborhood, into a sustainable and pedestrian oriented city which can provide its habitants all the needs they want without relying on Tel Aviv: be it offices for work, restaurants and retail for amusement, there will be no need to leave Netanya for other cities.
Additionally, there is plenty of Sun in Israel and it can be harnessed using "Form Follows Environment" to passively fuel the new city center.

Project description

Netanya was founded in 1929 as a settlement and was given the title of an official city in 1948, the urban development started from the North of the upcoming city and therefore its central district is located on the northern side, throughout the years many new neighborhoods were built at disconnected parts at south, west and east with the center mainly left unchanged and unextended, the new neighborhoods are mainly for residential houses and they lack any kind of accessible stores, workplaces and other amenities, because of this uneven development the urban fabric became fractured and divided into fragments with distances of up to 4km between neighborhoods when there is nothing in between for the pedestrian, these roads are only accessible by cars and serve only for driving purposes with no reason to stop, between these fragments exists a void which is the site of my project, the project aims to develop this void in a sustainable and walkable manner, providing many use case scenarios for the habitants of Netanya with the hope of connecting between the fragments, erasing the need to leave Netanya for work or entertainment in other cities. This is a new District working on 15 minute walk principles with mixed use buildings that follow the "Form Follows Environment" idiom, and its main purpose is providing people with many new places to go on their free time, as well as many new places to work at, all within reasonable reach, and fueled by green and renewable energy.

Technical information

All the new buildings on the masterplan feature a solar roof and a green roof. Using "form follows environment" the roof angle is optimized to produce the most annual energy possible, the facades are also tilted against south, where possible, to make for a more even sun distribution reducing heat and maximizing the energy that can be made by cladding the facades with PV cell panels. The main building of the district, the Business Center, provides a yearly amount of energy that equals 40,100,000 KW/H by following these optimization techniques in its facades and roof surfaces.
The glass curtain wall is offset inwards to prevent direct sun contact on the glass thanks to shadow from the slabs thus preventing heat. Additionally, the glass is tinted with varying UV resistance. All this passive energy can help power the building and the electric public transport which will be present in the district, together with the rest of the buildings involved, and working in tandem, maybe even power the old neighborhoods all by passive and natural means.

Documentation

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