ABOUT
sə’āh architects is a design and research studio specializing in private residential projects, work spaces and public institutions. Our designs are all the product of rigorous research and analysis, comprehensive and creative project-development processes, and painstaking attention to detail.
Duffy and Yasmin met 25 years ago in the offices of Israel Prize laureate Ada Karmi-Melamede, where they both worked for many years. It was during this time that they absorbed the principles of holistic architecture, an approach to design that embraces design and building processes in their entirety, from situating the building and grounding it in the specifics of its chosen site; to designing the individual spaces within the building and the connections between these spaces; and finally, to selecting appropriate building materials and developing building details.
We believe that the home—and broadly speaking, every architectural project—is like a man, ‘who is but the imprint of his native landscape’. A comprehensive, qualitative design is timeless; rather than following popular trends, it is fully enmeshed in its milieu and reflects its inhabitants’ value system. Our studio understands the physical and cultural meanings of place, which encompass topography, temperature, landscape, light, materials, history, customs and ways of life practiced by the individual and community. We understand the architectural project as a thing-in-itself and as that which depends on, reflects and communicates with the place in which it is situated. Identical projects are an impossibility; every project is the outgrowth of its particular place-conditions.
sə’āh studio fosters a close and continuous collaboration with the different professionals involved in carrying out building projects, from engineers to contractors, project supervisors and craftspeople. We see the design and execution process as an expression of the client’s needs and desires and its progression as a result of a fruitful dialogue among these different knowledgeable professionals. The studio’s architecture embodies, therefore, formal and informal knowledge; theoretical and practical knowledge; and ethical and aesthetic knowledge.
Yasmin Avisar trained as an architect at the Technion, where she was awarded a B.Arch. with distinction. Today, she has over 30 years of experience designing private residences, public institutions, office spaces, industrial buildings, and residential complexes and neighborhoods. She previously worked for Ouri Shitrit Architects, where she was responsible for the Eilat and Ayalot region master plan. In addition to this, she spent 15 years with Ada Karmi-Melamede and 8 years with Fishbain Architects, where she specialized in high-density planning. Yasmin has managed a variety of projects and directed large design teams. Her experience enables her to oversee projects from initial design, through the program consolidation, permit, tender and work-drawings stages, and finally to supervise the building process itself.
Dr. Daphna (Duffy) Half is an architect and architectural historian and theoretician. She holds a Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A summa cum laude from the Tel-Aviv University School of Philosophy and a B.Arch. from the Tel-Aviv University School of Architecture. Her theoretical research focuses on building typologies, topographies, public spaces and building crafts during the British Mandate period and the first decades of Israeli independence, analyzing how these issues were part of a larger discourse at the intersection of trans-national colonial architecture practices and the process of defining a new national style. Duffy has worked as an architect in Tel-Aviv, London and New York. On the academic side, she has taught design studios and history and theory of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania; was a post-doctoral fellow at the Technion; and has published her research in books and academic journals including: The Journal of Urban History by SAGE Publications in association with the Urban History Association, arq from Cambridge University Press, and The Journal of Architecture on behalf of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
אודות
סטודיו סְאָה לתכנון ומחקר אדריכלי הוא פרי שיתוף פעולה בין האדריכליות דפי הלף ויסמין אבישר
הסטודיו מתמחה בתכנון בתים פרטיים, משרדים ומבני ציבור. הפרויקטים שיוצאים תחת ידו הם תוצר של ניתוח מחקרי, עומק מחשבתי, פיתוח יצירתי והקפדה על פרטים, כשכל השלבים הללו קשורים זה בזה ומשפיעים זה על זה
דפי ויסמין נפגשו לפני כ-25 שנה במשרדה של זוכת פרס ישראל באדריכלות – עדה כרמי מלמד, שם עבדו השתיים שנים ארוכות וספגו את העקרונות ואת הפרקטיקה של אדריכלות הוליסטית - אדריכלות הרואה את התכנון כמכלול הבא לידי ביטוי מההעמדה במגרש, דרך תכנון החללים ואפיונם ועד לרמת הפרט
הסטודיו מאמין שהבית—ובמובן רחב יותר כל פרויקט—כמו האדם, הוא תבנית נוף מולדתו. תכנון מקיף ואיכותי שלו הוא על זמני כל עוד הוא טבוע במקום, מתייחס אליו, ומשקף את מערכת הערכים של יושביו. הסטודיו רואה את הפרויקט האדריכלי כמוצר העומד בפני עצמו ובאותה עת נמצא בדיאלוג עם אותו מקום בתוכו הוא משוקע. לפיכך, לא יתכנו שני פרויקטים זהים; כל פרויקט לגופו הוא תולדה של תנאי המקום הייחודיים לו
סטודיו סְאָה עובד בשיתוף פעולה הדוק ומתמשך עם בעלי המקצוע השונים המוציאים את הפרויקט אל הפועל, החל במהנדסים/יועצים, קבלנים, מפקחים ובעלי מלאכה. הוא רואה את תהליך התכנון והביצוע כביטוי של צרכיו ורצונותיו של הלקוח, וכתולדה של דו-שיח בין בעלי ידע מקצועי עשיר ומגוון. בתוצר האדריכלי של הסטודיו מגולמים על כן ידע פורמלי ובלתי פורמלי; ידע תיאורטי ומעשי; ידע אתי ואסתטי
PROJECTS
Residential
House in Ramat HaSharon, 270 sqm
House in Savion, 300 sqm
House in Ramat Gan, 270 sqm
House in Ness Harim, 200 sqm
House in Neve Ilan, 200 sqm
House in Ramat Aviv, 220 sqm
Apartment in Tel Aviv, 120 sqm
Apartment in Ramat HaSharon, 100 sqm
Apartment in New York, 120 sqm
House in Ramat HaSharon, 330 sqm
House in Jerusalem, at Ada Karmi Melamede and Partners, 400 sqm
House in Jerusalem, at Ada Karmi Melamede and Partners, 400 sqm
Housing projects, commercial centers and neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Rosh Ha’ayin, Modiin, at Gal Or Fishbain Architects
Commercial
Offices in Tel Aviv, 400 sqm
Offices in Yehud, 100 sqm
Offices in Herzliya, 200 sqm
Offices in Herzliya, 50 sqm
Offices in Herzliya, 450 sqm
Institutional
Art Gallery in Ramat HaSharon, 350 sqm
Child therapeutic center in Tel Aviv, 250 sqm
Visitor Center, Entry Hall and Cafeteria for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, at Ada Karmi Melamede and Partners, 3000 sqm
A pilots’ club and commemorative space at an IDF Squadron, 150 sqm
Conservation
Home in Jerusalem, 250 sqm
Beth Hahalutzot in Jerusalem, at Ada Karmi Melamede and Partners, 2600 sqm
Apartment Building in Tel Aviv, at Gal Or Fishbain Architects
Industriual
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries complex and visitors center in Ramat Hovav, at Ada Karmi Melamede and Partners, 5000 sqm
Master Plans
Master plan for Eilat and Ayalot region, at Ori Shitrit Architects
Master plan for Teva tech, at Ada Karmi Melamede and Partners
PUBLISHED
Half, Daphna E. and Nitzan-Shiftan, Alona. “Back to the Sea, Clifford Holliday and the Building of the Government Estate and Kingsway Boulevard in British Mandatory Haifa”, The Journal of Urban History, (March 2024).
Nitzan-Shiftan, Alona and Half, Daphna E. “Leisure Between the First and Second Worlds: Hilton Tel Aviv and Mivtachim Convalescent Home”, in Bozdogan, Sibel, Pyla, Panayiota and Phokaides, Petros, eds. Coastal Architectures and Politics of Tourism, Leisurescapes in the Global Sunbelt. New York and London: Routledge. 2023
Half, Daphna E. “Assembling Differences, Tel Aviv Culture Complex by D. Karmi, Z. Rechter. Y. Rechter and A. Karavan”, in Leatherbarrow, David, Projecting Urbanity: Architecture For and Against the City. London: Artifice Press. 2023.
Half, Daphna E. “Typology as Situatedness. The Architectural Dialectics of Modern Vernaculars in British Mandate Palestine”, The Journal of Architecture, (May 2020).
Half, Daphna E. “A New Materiality – In Praise of the Ordinary. Palestine-Israel, 1940-1966”, Architectural Research Quarterly, (March 2019).
Karmi Melamede, Ada and Half, Daphna E. Introduction to Leatherbarrow, David. Sense and Nonsense in Contemporary Architecture and Squaring the Circle or Connecting Critique and Conviction. Tel Aviv: The Azrieli Foundation. 2010.
Half, Daphna E. and Nitzan-Shiftan, Alona. “Kingsway Boulevard in Haifa: History, Historiography and the Preservation of Trans-National Architecture”, Israel – Journal for the Study of Zionism and Israel. Forthcoming. (in Hebrew).
Half, Daphna E. and Nitzan-Shiftan, Alona. “Pragmatism and Poetics of Public Works Architecture in British Mandatory Haifa”. Forthcoming.
