Cascading Brick Arches Feature in Penda's Residential Tower in Tel Aviv

Written by Niall Patrick Walsh
Published on June 21, 2018

Penda has released images of its proposed high-rise residential tower in Tel Aviv, featuring brick arches and cascading terraces influenced by the city’s Bauhaus era and the materiality of its Old Town. The 380-foot-high (116-meter-high) scheme will house a range of one to four bedroom apartments, as well as double-height penthouses.

For the scheme’s design, Penda rejected the “generic glass tower” in favor of a form and materiality which responds to Tel Aviv’s sunny Mediterranean climate.

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The 190,000-square-foot (17,500-square-meter) scheme is defined by its cascading arches, chosen for its historical “shelter” roots in architecture, and its traditional role as a “welcoming gesture” at the entrance to buildings and cities. Together with layered terraces, the rhythmic layout of the arched structure creates a façade which reflects the vividness of Tel Aviv, striking a balance between openness and shelter.

Encircling the 18 floors of apartments are a ribbon of terraces, acting as shading devices against direct sunlight, and giving outdoor access to every room. Setbacks in the building’s form create two distinctive terraces typologies: roofed ones providing sun protection, and open terraces ideal for landscaping. Privacy of terraces also varies between outbound areas to encourage cross-floor communication, and inbound, private areas.

We mainly looked to the past and how the previous generation built in Mediterranean regions. Designing in a warm climate is not about maximizing glass-facades and a continues AC-run. It’s about creating a design that offers views on one hand but minimizes its openings to direct sunlight on the other. The arch is an expression of this approach and improves the buildings structural capacities and energy performance at the same time.
-Chris Precht, Co-Founder, Penda

The tower is designed in a modular system, allowing structural elements to be prefabricated at lower construction and maintenance costs. The geometry of the building has been heavily influenced by the Bauhaus, with its emphasis on openness, clarity, and rationality exhibited in the clear design language of the arches and lines.

Further inspiration came from the old town of Tel Aviv, with profound masonry such as stone-paved alleys and thick stone walls reflected in the Penda scheme with the timeless craft of hand-laid brickwork.

Construction of the Tel Aviv Arcades is set to begin construction in 2019, overseen by the Austrian branch of Penda.

Office: Penda Austria
Name: Tel Aviv Arcades
Type: Residential
Location: Tel Aviv, Isreal
Year: 2017-Present
Size: 21000 sqm
Team: Chris Precht, Fei Tang, Dayong Sun, ZiZhi Yu
Credits: penda architecture & design
Renderings: Penda Austria
News via: penda architecture & design

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