History of architecture and urbanism, ordinary landscapes, and communal settlements

I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to Berkeley I worked for a few years as an architect in New York and Tel Aviv. During this time, I was involved in a variety of projects ranging from large-scale public buildings in East Europe to housing projects in Jerusalem and small residences in the US. 

My research focuses on the relationship between the design of the built environment and political processes. In my dissertation, Designing West Bank Settlements: Histories of Power Relations and Quests for Redemption, I study the planning and evolution of West Bank settlements since 1967 to the present. Following an interdisciplinary study that combines archival research, spatial analysis, and ethnography, I argue that over a period of almost five decades the West Bank has functioned as a site of intense experimentation with architecture and urban design. Focusing on the interaction between architects, urban planners, and settlers, I show how, in their search after a new aesthetic language that would speak to the settlers’ sense of belonging to the land, each developed divergent – indeed sometimes contradictory – aesthetic visions. Charting the evolution of these competing models, I offer a new look at the internal dynamics and reasoning of settlers as they articulated their identities in relation to urban and architectural forms found not only in Israel proper, but also in the neighboring Palestinian towns.