הביטאט אילתי

The project emerges from a personal perspective on Eilat, my hometown, whose unique identity has been a source of deep belonging alongside distance and critique. Eilat is a city of freedom, slow pace, and unparalleled spatial openness, yet it is divided between two realities: a touristic city and a residential one. For decades, the airport at the heart of the city symbolized a clear boundary between these worlds- between tourism and the local economy, visitors and residents, city and sea. The project is located in the seam between the marina and Ofira Park, adjacent to the former airport area, proposing a new urban continuity that reconnects the city with its touristic zone. At its core lies a coral cultivation and restoration farm, serving as a shared educational, research, and public space for both residents and tourists. Through its program, it fosters direct encounters, collaboration, and mutual learning – a connection that challenges the long-standing social and spatial divide embedded in the city’s consciousness. The architectural language draws inspiration from Eilat’s early buildings of the 1950s and 1960s: climatic, simple, and intelligent, reinterpreted in a contemporary manner that integrates local materials, light, shade, and views. The result is a space embodying the concept of “The Eilat Habitat”- a place where nature, city, and people coexist in harmony and shape one another.