My final project revolves around  renovating and improving the Old City of Tiberias.

 

Tiberias is considered one of the largest tourist destinations in the country. The city is popular with ultra-Orthodox visitors, and of course a very important destination for the Christian religion. However, the occupancy rate in the city's hotels is lower than other tourist destinations in Israel, such as Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The city does not seem to realize its great potential.

 

Tiberias is  built  of many layers of history, the city was demolished and rebuilt several times. Tiberias had many rulers over history, who left  different remains behind. In Tiberias, there are holy sites for the three religions and buildings of great historical, aesthetic and cultural value.

 

My challenge in my Final Project, was to deepen awareness of the city's rich past, expose the city's historical sites and create a system of connections between these sites and the city's tourism. All this in order to strengthen the identity of Tiberias as a city with many layers of history, located on the shore of Lake Kinneret.

 

As part of my research on Tiberias and the development of the city's Urban texture, I noticed that the streets the British designed (after the flood in 1937) leading to the Kinneret, hardly  exist as they did.  

Over the years, large hotels have been built, some of which constitute real barriers between the city, the Sea of ​​Galilee and the historic sites. A good example of this situation is the Leonardo Club Hotel which blocks the view and access to the Sea Mosque - an ancient mosque that characterized the Sea of ​​Galilee and served the fisherman in the past. Today the Mosque is barely noticed between the hotel and a large commercial building on the boardwalk.

 

The planning principles that I have used in order to achieve the plan I propose include -

 

1. The Water Line - Strengthening and renewing the streets leading to the Kinneret,  and providing a modern interpretation of the ancient fortification line, in order to produce access, and a promenade that works both with the water and with the Old City.

 

2. Creating a secondary road system, based on the ancient alleys, and characterizing the entrances to those alleys on the border between the Old City and the New City. The entrances will be public areas in the form of urban gardens and will emphasize the boundary between the old and the new.

 

3. Creating public squares at the gates of the Old City

 

4. Creating a public space around sites of historical value.

 

All of these principles stem from the desire to create a network that connects those historic centers, the Sea of ​​Galilee, residents and tourists in the city.

 

The street I developed at a scale of 1: 500, is the street leading to the Sea mosque. I decided to evacuate the Leonardo Hotel in order to design a new hotel instead.

I felt that the Leonardo Hotel  location has great importance since it is surrounded by the archaeological garden, the ancient Jewish plaza, the Sea mosque and of course at first line to the Sea of ​​Galilee.

My goal was to create a pedestrian street that reaches an area that shares a public space with the Sea mosque, ancient synagogues, the Sea of ​​Galilee and the hotel.

The principles that accompanied me during the process of planning the new hotel were:

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1.  Detracting from the mass in front of sites with significant value to the city, and creating public uses with the hotel exterior along with those sites.

 

2.  The hotel as the old city’s view point. I made sure that the views created  at the hotel, both private and public, have eye contact with those sites that I think are significant to the city of Tiberias.

 

Hotel Façade

 

While designing  the hotel façade I have developed a language that consists of horizontal and vertical elements, with each element having a starting and ending point. 

Like my entire project, which is based on the Old City of Tiberias and relies on its  history –

I also wanted the façade to "lean" on the massive vertical stone wall which characterizes  the Old City and the history of Tiberias.