Ramot Housing

Jerusalem, Israel, Stage I: 1971-1975

The design of the Ramot Housing project in Jerusalem was commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Housing in 1971.

Most researchers-architects-students focus on the polyhedral (dodecahedral) elevations of the buildings, but actually the geometric strategy of the project is much more complex. It is related to the form of the site and the phenomena of the Golden Section manifested in the arrangement of seeds in sunflowers and in the geometry of the pentagon.

The general plan of the Ramot Housing is reminiscent of the palm of an open hand - its five fingers are retaining walls "supporting" the slope of the hill. Each "finger" is composed again of five boomerang–like buildings assembled in such a way as to create interior courtyards transferred by pedestrian paths reminiscent of the Old City of Jerusalem.

The buildings' inclination towards the interior of the courtyards provides a protected shadowy exterior.

The geometry of the buildings follows a stereometric dense space packing of cubes inscribed into dodecahedrons (as dodecahedrons do not pack densely). The elevations exhibit pentagons, the final use of the number five.

In another metaphor, the elevational dodecahedrons suggest a blown up stone wall, as found in and around Jerusalem, built mostly of irregular pentagons.