Field Trip Impressions

Maoz Aviv, Tel-Aviv, Israel

We regarded the Maoz Aviv neighborhood as an Urban Kibbutz. It is located in the outer skirts of Tel Aviv and it preserves, with its comfortable proportions and its large green the, a suburban nature of living.

Neighbors- The compound was built in 1954 for a specific community of military officers. Although some 50 years have passed since the first occupant moved in it still preserves a sense of community with a committee that controls the entrance of new occupants and promotes the new building approval. Although the tenants give up their privacy in favor of a socialist way of living they enjoy a communal care of the public space that would normally be neglected.

Neighborhood- Moshe Zarhi, the architect of the compound, describes it as keeping the average density of the city of Tel Aviv. Although the density might not be kept with the new developing urbanism, the compound does offer a big amount of units in good proportions with green space. The ongoing public well-kept green lawns combined with the lack of motorways, provide the inhabitants a good opportunity to live in a quiet neighborhood and safely raise their children.

Neighboring- The main aspect of the neighboring quality of Maoz Aviv is the public spaces that are well kept within the mutual interests. As Ruti Zarhi- a resident of the compound- told us: "In a hot summer day, once one neighbor takes out his little pool, all the kids of the neighborhood run out with their bathing suits to play together". Through those public spaces the compound creates a sense of community witch allows its members to watch what is going on within the territories and constantly be watched.

HaMashtela Neighborhood, Tel-Aviv, Israel

This neighborhood resembles a Telenovela Neighborhoods that are usually watched on TV, in that sense that the neighborhood provides the city with its outstanding contemporary architecture but neglects the pastoral surroundings of the outer skirts of Tel Aviv.

Neighbors- The neighborhood is directed towards the upper class. It is located among other high end neighborhoods of northern Tel Aviv and the developers commissioned the most high profiled architects ( Yaakov Yaar, Ram Karmi, etc.) to assemble the compound. But since the building of it in 1993, there hasn't been much demand for it and so not the whole plan was built and some of the buildings are not fully occupied. This fact might turn the developers to address another kind of public.

Neighborhood- We would describe it as a TABA neighborhood – within the inclusive plan of Yaakov Yaar dictates the various architects, consequentially commissioned to design their own set of buildings, the size and the height of each building and general guidance for the design. This way of planning enables a interesting variety of different individual styles within the same compound while the general plan binds them together and outlines it's public spaces and qualities.

Neighboring- While the neighborhood does offer a large amount of well developed public spaces, with a diverse range of programs that move between a public park to a commercial centre, to our opinion there are not enough meeting points between the tenants, and the existing ones are not significant enough. There are plenty of situations in which the tenant gets from the extensive parking lot straight to his own apartment or the other way around straight to work or to central Tel Aviv where concentrated al the leisure facilities. The neighborhood operates in that way that the neighbors might not really know each other, but from the other hand maybe that is exactly what the rich want.