Uploaded on 2016-12-09 by Nadav Lasser

This picture depicts the "pod" inside the Porter School of Environmental Studies, Tel Aviv University (design by Studio Geotectura - Architect Joseph Cory, Chen Architects NCA, Grobman Architects). It is a steel and bamboo construction, and the space is used for meetings, seminars and lectures. The building itself is the highest-rated green building in Israel, rated at LEED Platinum. The design and construction techniques are all imported to Israel, a country which has little modern construction tradition. This structure has little to do with the existing local building traditions, which are based on Arab climate-oriented building, or even the imported traditions of modernism and building industry which developed in the country during its heyday. It is highly unlikely that the use of such traditions would have resulted in such a creation, or the high LEED rating it earned. One may ask, however, whether that less-flashy alternative would have been in fact more sustainable and resilient in the long-run.