Ziv Avivi

Emerging Infrastructure | Revisiting Tel Aviv’s Ayalon River-Road

The increase in the density of cities, alongside the increasing use of private vehicles, has led to a significant expansion of the city's transportation infrastructure and a substantial deterioration of problems that affect the quality of life in the urban space, including noise, air pollution and physical tears in the large city. These challenges encourage a re-examination of the image of cities of the future and a thought as to whether and how an optimal integration of massive traffic infrastructures can take place, together with the urban life in the city. The project examines the issue in a future vision in 2050, treats it as an opportunity, and seeks to respond to it and the consequences that will come with it. The premise is that, in 2050, technology alone will lead to a reduction in noise and air pollution hazards and thus considerable areas, currently dedicated to transportation, will become new operating spaces, which will have the potential to patch the urban fabric and efficiently use urban spaces. The Ayalon Highway, the main transportation route of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, has become a significant medium in recent years, which constitutes a main attraction and has an urban role, as a trade and employment area. Despite its urban qualities, its weakness lies in the fact that it creates a rift in the city, divides it into East and West, leads to the weakening of the eastern neighborhoods and causes an imbalance in the functioning of the city. The project offers a future alternative and feasibility for utilizing the Ayalon highway space, while focusing on three different and diverse areas in the city; The Diamond Exchange District, the Yad Eliyahu area and the HaHagana Railway Station area. The planning, which changes in nature in each of the three areas, includes an open and flexible layered system, which exists simultaneously in the horizontal and vertical aspects, through integration between the main components in the space - the road and traffic system, access to the Ayalon River and a structural system above the Ayalon Highway. The planning is based on the roads system, which continues from Patrick Geddes’ plan, from west of Tel Aviv and connects to Richard Kauffmann’s plan, in the direction of Ramat Gan. In addition to these existing routes, the planning proposes the opening of pedestrian green routes, at a low intensity level, which cross the Ayalon Highway. These routes create a new grid in the Ayalon area, which serves as a basis for planning. The Ayalon River, which is currently trapped between Ayalon's traffic routes, is a water artery that flows through the city, but to this day, constitutes a threatening and hostile factor, whose impact can be reduced. The plan proposes opening access ways to the river, by converting transportation areas into open areas, which will bring a breath of fresh air into the city; River vegetation, animals, flower beds for the management of surface runoff and a living and breathing environment for the residents of the city. In addition, the planning presents an alternative to the reduction of flooding of the Highway, by diverting drainage channels, which flow into the river, into delay pools. In doing so, the Ayalon River transforms from a linear entity into a basin entity, which integrates within the urban fabric. Planning of the structural system over the Ayalon Highway, which is provided to the city as a free operating space, is based on the structural proportions of Patrick Geddes’ plan and draws the principles of the urban block and public gardens into a new planning space with high structural intensity that combines green roofs and open spaces. The new space combines public programs, housing, employment and open spaces, in accordance with the nature of the area on the Ayalon Highway and strives to create physical and visual connections to the existing street level. The project presents spatial situations, in an attempt to integrate the various qualities offered on the site, into a green integral infrastructure which contributes to the quality of life in the city, while rethinking the pedestrian’s experience and creating opportunities in the new space created, as part of the city entirety. The leading principle of the project is our worldview as architects, while we come to become involved in the space - to try to analyze in advance in the best and most board way, what qualities can the new space offer and not give up significant urban properties that can contribute to the city, today and in the future.