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Architects: Kimmel Eshkolot Architects
- Area: 6300 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Amit Geron
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Manufacturers: AutoDesk, McNeel, Trimble
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Lead Architects: Etan Kimmel, Limor Amrani, Omri Ron
Text description provided by the architects. Located in the center of the Tel Aviv University campus, The Check Point Building is a seemingly floating volume in the campus; it contrasts the adjacent Mario Botta’s iconic Synagogue and the 1960s Faculty of Exact Sciences. The Building is a new type of technology integrated building with a unique envelope made of pixels of glass that were designed using parametric modeling, it is an innovative system matching the values that the building represents.
Donated by Check Point, an Israeli cyber security corporation, the new faculty building aspires to support academic excellence and training of future generations of computer scientists and programmers. The Building for the Faculty of Computer Sciences joins a list of new university campus additions, including the Kimmel Eshkolot Architects’ designed Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.
The development of the unique technology had a critical influence on the design process by Kimmel Eshkolot Architects and on the final result. The architecture strives to transcend the heavy materiality of buildings to the immaterial virtually of computers and cloud computing. It appears to be constantly changing, from material to reflection, blending with the sky and clouds. The building envelope is characterized by flowing and dynamic geometries, which create a connection between the wings : the Youth Wing in the lower south sections, which converge towards the upper floors, towards the Computer Science areas. In the middle are the garden and the Youth Experiment Terrace.
The building envelope consists of five types of 40 x 40 cm glass panels that are anchored to the building. The five configurations offer various levels of transparency and reflectivity, designed with parametric modeling in accordance to the needs of the users — transparency in the windows and sealing in other parts.
The more transparent panels, can open in a parallel plane to the facade - creating windows that visually maintain the overall volume even when open. In order to blur the windows appearance in the overall mass at dark, a lighting system was designed to illuminate certain pixels and make the windows less visible. The double-skin facade, with the glass pixels is creating a ventilated buffer zone. The building breathes fresh air into the air-conditioning system from this in-between area.
The different spaces and the circulation system create informal meeting areas as well as open work environments that are integrated into staff rooms and laboratories. The idea of flow and movement visible in the facade continues in the design of the interior: The classrooms have views towards the central atrium, the staircase lead visitors through a sequence of spaces and classrooms flow out and become coworking areas.
