The Neot Hovav Industrial Council Center.

Neot Hovav is an industrial park that houses Israel’s heavy chemical and pharmaceutical industries, situated in a desert region in the southern part of the country. The project includes a small office building that houses the local Council and a public facing interactive Museum of Chemistry with exhibition spaces, an auditorium and a cafeteria.  The Museum is meant to introduce students and the general public from around the country to these important local industries and their extraordinary achievements in chemistry, medicine, etc...

The complex sits on the ridge of a hilly and sandy terrain overlooking a seemingly endless yellow desert to the East and the very developed industrial park to the West.  Our response was to develop a layered spatial composition made up of two distinct pieces that would act as a threshold between these conditions.  From the main road along the eastern edge of the site, the Council building appears as a straight volume whereas the Museum reads as a curved one delineated by a tall concrete wall that disappears between the two volumes.  This defining wall shifts from a concrete and concave geometry outside to a convex geometry inside, bisecting the Council building and terminating at its edge in a public staircase that connects the ground to the roof. 

Both volumes share a common entry and are three stories high and each contains an introverted tall space lit by indirect, natural light sources above. The movement between and through these volumes forms a dynamic flow that is continuously transformed by natural light which changes and moves steadily across the spaces and the undulating concrete wall.  This dramatic movement and lighting works to both connect and differentiate the distinct pieces of this complex, emulating the role of the building as a connector between the desert topography of the surrounding area and the story of this industrial park.