מטרו-פוליס

The city is in a constant process of transformation, yet the very moment in which change takes place is often perceived as a period simply to be endured. Large-scale infrastructure projects reshape the urban environment over many years, creating extensive construction sites—fenced-off and inaccessible spaces that occupy the heart of the city while we await their future outcome. This project operates within that time. The project is situated at the site of the future Magen David Square metro station in Tel Aviv. It considers the years of construction not merely as a transitional phase leading to the completed station, but as an urban condition in its own right. The project seeks to inhabit the excavation pit while it remains an active infrastructure site, reintroducing urban activity, exposing the construction process, and allowing the city, the public, and construction workers to coexist alongside and within it. The excavation pit establishes a fundamental architectural constraint: there is no ground on which to build. In response, the structure is suspended within it. A structural framework anchored to both sides of the pit supports a system of suspended elements, within which lightweight, temporary volumes are integrated. Markets, commerce, culture, leisure, and workers’ facilities introduce different rhythms of life into the site, from morning until night, allowing what was taken from the city to reclaim its place during construction. Time and temporality drive the project's central concept. The structural system is designed to be assembled, adapted, and dismantled in accordance with the progress of the metro construction. In this way, the construction period becomes an opportunity for architecture to operate within the process of transformation, turning the years of infrastructure development into an integral part of urban life.