Year 2023 - 2024

This project is the winner of the first prize in the Tectura Awards 2024.

The project depicts the expansion of House of grace which is adjacent to Our Lady cathedral in Haifa while providing various spaces for each group of users.

The church has always affected shaping the society. The church is considered a large cultural, educational and social organization in the world. The "Our Lady" Church is located in Haifa, it is a part of a complex that rehabilitates ex-inmates. The "Our Lady" Church was built in the Ottoman period for the Greek Melkite Christians near the Khamra square. Before 1948, the church was an active community center for Haifa's citizens, due to it being part of the Christian quarter's structure, in addition it included an elementary school. The church reached its peak as a community center in 1930 where the neighborhood was full of houses and life. After the war, the Christian quarter was demolished and Christians were forced to leave their house. As a result, The Our Lady Cathedral was abandoned. In 1982, Kamil and Agnes Shehadeh; a Christian couple  started House of Grace- a rehabilitation center for ex-inmates and renovated the Our Lady Cathedral. House of Grace also helps families and youth who suffer from a difficult social economical situation. Today it can accommodate only 17 ex-inmates.
 

 The land ownerships in the lot were the church is located are not identified. Therefore, the country used it to build high governmental buildings that hide the church and separates the complex from the people, weakening it's role as a community organization. Today the House of Grace and the Our lady cathedral are surrounded by public and governmental barrier such as: courthouse, synagogue, banks, law firm and Mano company. This barrier prevents the church from expanding its spaces to help more people, thus decreasing it's  role as a place that serves the community. The project's approach sees an opportunity to help the complex breakthrough the barrier that the government has built, to expand the complex and to build an educational, communal and cultural center that can serve various people;  every pedestrian who walks through the complex, the nearby neighborhoods, ex-inmates and the youth who have difficult social economical situations. The design strategy is to analyze the historical structure that was before 1948, this structure is characterized for being more related to the human scale which was on of the factors that contributed to form a community. The purpose of the research is to extract these qualities to create a new typological catalog that suits the new uses of this time. The project includes 3 floors: the first is filled with cultural and commercial spaces for everyone’s use, in addition to educational spaces close by the residential neighborhoods( Wadi Nisnas and Hadar ha carmel) that function as a school in the morning time for the kids of these neighborhoods and the kids of the employees who work there while in the afternoon they serve the youth at risk and the Christian parish. The second floor includes educational spaces that allow the interaction between the citizens and the ex- inmates as part of the rehabilitation process, thus helping the ex-inmates to fit back in the society. The third floor serves as a residential floor for the ex-inmates, it can accommodate 68 ex-inmates.
 

 In conclusion,  the project's purpose is to strengthen the cultural, communal role of the House of Grace and the Our Lady Cathedral and help her get both the potential and the space it needs to serve as many people as possible.
 

Research question: How does strengthening the position of the church in the urban fabric can form a public- communal space that supports the society?