The Secular Monastery: a research center in the Negev Desert

The Eilat Research and Study Center, adjacent to the spring of Ein Netafim and roughly seven miles from the city of Eilat in southern Israel, will be a meeting-place for scientists and artists from around the world interested in issues pertaining to the desert. It will be a ‘monastery of the mind’. Semi-autonomous and distanced from an urban setting, this will be a place for intellectual refuge, a community of people with common goals, interests, and aspirations. The spring of Ein Netafim is situated at the beginning of a small canyon that descends to the shores of the Red Sea. The Center will be situated on the steep northern slope of this canyon, overlooking the wash. While always populated, the desert in these regions has rendered human habitation difficult. With the advent of new technology many adversities can be overcome, yet the challenge remains to create a built environment that can accommodate its residents while respecting the splendor and fierceness of its surroundings. The proposed architectural solution to this challenge is possible thanks to the predominant use of retaining walls that allow the creation of public and private spaces. The Center takes its form from the slope on which it resides, and continues a well-established tradition of monastic building in this area. Construction has been limited to a small number of components which accommodate themselves to the different requirements and scales throughout the project. And throughout the Center, care has been given to creating a variety of spaces that will answer different needs and encourage the interaction of its participants, all the while retaining architectural coherence and the sense of a unified whole.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Architecture

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Architecture

Department dc:contributor.department

Architecture

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Year dc:date.issued

1997

Author dc:creator

• Rottem, Meekhal Rapoport

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Holt, Jaan

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Piedmont-Palladino, Susan C.
• Karvouni, Maria

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10919/82621

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/82621