Raanana Aviv High School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

Project Narrative

The city is in a transitional phase from a rural town to a high-tech center.
On the urban and social level the design meets the need to create a meaningful cooperation with the community. The school entrance creates an urban plaza,shared with the gym, serving the community for leisure, educational and sport
activities.
On the pedagogical level there are some principles that the design is based upon:
The first principle is the division of the school into
three age groups, each of them located in its separate realm connected to the school by the main “public” arteries.
Every such “Home” is built as a cluster of 8 classrooms surrounding a communal amphitheatriacl multipurpose space for leisure time, gatherings and individual learning activities.
Each home enjoys its private court, private lavatories and some staff rooms.
The second priciple is the creation of the science center on the upper level that enables the concentration of professional resources along the “science road” on
the long axis of the scheme.
The third principle is the most interesting and innovative . Most high school schemes are designed with clear separation between the science center and the
classrooms. This scheme main advantage is the ability to relate to the science rooms in a flexible way. On plan, the science rooms are all part of the science center, but by vertically joining the science rooms to the nearby classrooms clusters, all sorts of new ways to organize the study schedule occur to meet the ever changing needs of unknown future.

Educator Narrative

Educator Narrative

Our new high school should meet all the dreams we have nurtured for years.
The first and foremost principle is the division of the new school into three separate age groups.
We believe in the law of the dimmishing size: The less there are the better they behave.
Every group should be as self contained as possible with its own private court, its lavatories, teacher’s rooms and most important a large multipurpose space for all sorts of leisure, gathering and individual activities .
Our study system is in transformation. We teach now in the traditional way of “home classes” were each pupil has his own permanent classroom were he studies all subjects except for the sports, arts, science and technology.
We plan to transform this traditional system into what we call “proffessional classes system”. In this system each classroom is dedicated to a subject and the pupils are visiting the professional teachers in their classrooms.
For this system we should have immediate approach to the scientific spaces so that it can be augmented to the professional classroom cluster.
The third objective is to enhance the cooporation with the community by creating a common entrance plaza and making the gym and classrooms a true community center.
And last but not the least: We believe that the school design should express the transfomation of our city from a rural small town to an important high-tech center of the region.