The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, designed by FOSTER&PARTNERS is a pioneering research facility for scientific exploration of the brain.

The building, covering an area of over 20,000 square meters including its roof, is arranged as two parallel wings 20 meters apart, around a central courtyard. The upper levels house twenty-eight highly flexible laboratories, which meet the highest standards to avoid unnecessary vibrations of the building. The upper floors are linked by social hubs, made of steel beams and covering the span between the two wings. At the ground floor, there are teaching facilities, a 300-seat auditorium, a library, café and a publically accessible gallery for the display of brain art. The basement levels consist of more labs, faculty offices and underground parking.  A flat retractable steel roof, consisting of ETFE cushions and aluminum louvers, covers the entire building from above.

The steel roof was fully designed by our office and in full coordination with Foster and Partners Architects.*

The building is made of concrete and stone veneer with glass and steel making up the curtain wall. The building's ceilings were pre-stressed from one end to the other in order to obviate the need for expansion joints.

To give the building a unique look of a human brain, large portions of the building are covered with "neurons", aluminum frames embeding templates of neurons within them.

Eilat Museum - video

Bridge Prototype - Video

The Beit Shmuel Cultural Center is a building for hospitality and gathering that was built adjacent to the Hebrew Union College building and designed by SAFDIE Architects.

The 7,000 square meter site borders the Mamila site and views the walls of the Old City and the Jaffa Gate.

The building is used by the Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, and consists of guest rooms, classrooms, a cafeteria and offices.

The building's walls and ceilings were made from concrete and clad in stone. At the top of the building there is an open assembly hall that overlooks the Old City. It is constructed of a system of concrete arches connected to a cone made of glass and steel.

The Bank of Israel building is part of Kiryat HaMemshala complex. The building was planned in the late 1970's by architects Arie Sharon and Eldar Sharon, and Luis Labaton as the head engineer, behalf of Oscar Sircovich, civil engineers office

The main building,with area of 20,000 sq meters, resembles an elongated, upside-down pyramid.

In the center, an atrium divides the building into two longitudinal wings. The space is covered with a light glass roof. Hidden balconies are located on the top floor. 

The building consists of office floors, work spaces, a dining room, a library and safe deposit rooms in the basement of the bank. The seventh floor houses, among others, the governor's office.

Because of the building's unique structure, the structural concrete was pre-stressed with cables, without expansion joints. The building floors protrude outwards, and are supported by a system of beams and columns that are located on the exterior of the building. Since the columns rise at an angle, they were pre-stressed in order to create a durable inflexible frame also supporting against horizontal loads. The building is covered with stone.

The renovation program that is now being led by architect Zvi Dunski,and Labaton and Partners engineers, takes into account the complicated structure of the building. The execution of the renovation is strictly supervised by the engineers to prevent undermining of the building's stability. Moreover, this renovation allows for reinforcement of the building's structure as needed, and adjusting it where possible to conform to current standards.

At the client's request, the architects in this project were replaced by Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA, from Tokyo, in cooperation with the Israeli firm, Nir Kutz Architects

The building, covering an area of 45,000 sqm + 10,000 sqm underground parking, is designed in the center of Jerusalem. It will host classrooms, studios, offices, an auditorium, an operational area various workshops, and an underground parking lot, addressing Bezalel’s need for breaking the traditional separation of the academy’s eight departments and allowing for a more active social and cultural involvement in the city’s life.

The structure is composed of 9 concrete cores and over 100 columns, spread out asymmetrically with spans of 9 meters and slab cantilevers of 4.5 meters, giving the structure its very unique look.

The cores are built from reinforced concrete, while the building is enclosed by a steel and glass curtain wall.

The retaining walls are varied and some have cantilevers up to 7 meters.

Our office completed the construction design for the full original tender.

Upon completion of the excavation phase, it was agreed that another engineering team will supervise the construction and be responsible for it.

The campus building designed by RAHAMIMOFF Architects sprawls across an area of 9000 square meters.
  

The structure consists of three terraced wings, which connect to the main seven story building through the entrance hall, which rises up from the ground floor to the full height of the building.

The interior space is a sort of a light box which consists of a steel and glass structure that reveals the view to the east, and floods the building's floors with light.

The structure was built on a steep landfill, which was created from construction waste. Because of the soil quality, a retaining wall was built from deep piles and anchors that stabilized the ground and enabled digging in the site and laying of a concrete slab foundation that rests on support piles.

The retaining wall reinforces against the lateral pressure of the soil on the building. The separation between the wall and the building created a kind of service tunnel, where all the pipe systems and other infrastructure pass through, and branch off throughout the building floors.

The building is made of concrete and stone veneer with glass and steel making up the curtain wall. The building's ceilings were pre-stressed from one end to the other in order to obviate the need for expansion joints.

The wings serve as offices for researchers and lecturers. The main structure contains class rooms, a 125 seat assembly hall, and on the top floor, a terraced 250 seat auditorium. A library is located on the edge of the main building. It is covered by a dome made of copper and multi-layered wood, which rests on a radial cantilever.

The hotel was built in a terraced pyramid structure, sprawling on a slope overlooking to the old city. The area of the hotel is 75,000 square meters and has 600 rooms, pool, and underground parking.
 

The rooms of the hotel were built with thin pre-cast bearing walls that were joined to each other and to the ceilings with poured concrete in order  to create a hidden joint and finished, clean looking lines. These walls were planned to act as a framework in order to support each other and the ceilings.

The main lobby is a five story space at the top of the pyramid. The room levels on the perimeter hang from the roof beams, and were designed using a post-tensioned space frame solution.

International design competiton, for planning a new bridge over the Amstel river in Amsterdam.

A 1st place winner of an international design competition, for the Nanjing Great  Bao'en Temple new pagoda.

The design team for the competition included: Rahamimof architects (Arie, Salma adn Heli), Giora Solar as the conservation architect, and Labaton and Partners as the construction engineers.

The design team was responsible for the preliminary design, and the proposal was carried out by a local construction team and completed in 2015, after over 150 million dollars, were donated by a chinese businessman, the largest donation ever reported in China.

Our office was part of the design team led by international Prizker winning office of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners from NY in collaboration with Spector Amisar Architects, for the new entrance to the Israel Museum in  Jerusalem.

The project wasn't executed

The museum designed for science related activities, was built in 3 stages with total area of 9,500 sq meters. It is built of concrete with stone veneer, and glass curtain walls and steel space frame.
 

The interior of the museum is built with wings and different spaces for exhibits and group activities for visitors. The spaces are connected with steel bridges and pathways.

The building construction, including the concrete frame and the roofs, was planned for hanging different displays, depending on the nature of the exhibits and the topics that are presented in the museum.

Stage A of the project covers an area of 5000 sq meters, and consists of a main building complex that is made up of a school for desert research, and residence buildings.

The complex is intended for researchers and scientists who come to the Negev to study the desert.

These buildings, made from reinforced concrete with stone veneer, are suited to the conditions of the desert climate. This suitability is manifested in the buildings' exteriors: the locations and directions of light and air openings are based on the angle and direction of the sun throughout the year, and sealing and isolation layers were placed between the stone veneer and concrete.

Throughout the year, the interiors of the buildings remain at a fixed temperature of º22C without the need for air conditioning.

The marine sciences campus is located on a stretch of Mikhmoret beach. The campus buildings cover 12,000 square meters and designed by RAHAMIMOFF Architects. Completed phases A+B of the academic campus.
 

The project is divided into nine separate wings, connected by a long corridor, which form a courtyard that opens to the sea. The wings contain labs, class rooms, offices, assembly halls and an auditorium.

The buildings will be built out of bare concrete with sandy-white pigment of different shades. Therefore, the concrete walls, planned as bearing walls, were are double reinforced on the exterior side. This is meant to prevent cracking, and keep moisture from penetrating into the bare concrete and causing the reinforcing steel to rust.

The corridor will be shaded by a wooden pergola. The concrete roofs of the wings will incorporate clerestories, made out of glass and light steel to allow natural light to penetrate.

The auditorium will be made out of concrete walls in a circle, with longitudinal openings facing the sea. The building is covered with a light canopy over arches made of multi-layered wood, giving it a shell-like appearance.

The area of the auditorium is about 700 square meters and contains 300 seats, including a cantilevered balcony that hangs from the concrete walls.

The project is used as an education and rehabilitation center for people with special needs, designed by SAFDIE Architects.


The site covers an area of 3,000 square meters and is divided into three wings: The administration center and two lateral wings, used for teaching, workshops, and rehabilitation.

The skeleton of the project consists of concrete walls and ceilings, with stone veneer. On the top floor, on the facades and roofs of the wings, there are openings for natural light that are covered with light glass and zinc. In the area of the building that was designated for future development, retaining walls were built in arcs that create yards for activity, gardening and flora.

This building is the first stage of a project that covers 20,000 square meters.

The project, as initially designed by the winner of an international competition, included 50,000 square meters of studio halls, workshops, master's classes, offices, auditoriums, etc.
 

The project was divided into two main structures connected by an underground system of passageways and other infrastructure. Underneath them, an underground one story parking lot.

The buildings' design called for reinforced concrete with stone veneer laid horizontally. The building façades are pierced by rectangular windows, of different sizes and in random locations, which are partly covered in stone lamella, letting in natural light and vistas of the city. The building was planned mostly as a green building according to European standards. For example, the roofs of the northern building were planned to accommodate gardens.

The construction of most of the ceilings of the main buildings was planned from pre-stressed reinforced concrete without rafters, mostly to act as a framework to connect the walls which are the main support.

• At the client's request, the architects in this project were replaced by Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA, from Tokyo, in cooperation with the Israeli firm, Nir Kutz Architects.

Two terminal stations were planned and built on the Masada site, which overlooks the Dead Sea.


The cable car allows easy access to the top of the mountain which is located 300 meters above the lower station. The stations were planned in cooperation with the Swiss company "Von-Roll" that was in charge of the driving mechanism and the cars, which are able to contain 80 people each.

The upper station was built on the steep edge of the mountain. Because there was no access for heavy tools, the contractor had to excavate the mountain and lay the raft foundation by building a scaffolding system which hangs on the side of the mountain. The station is built from steel construction with a smoothed concrete platform.

Horizontal and vertical loads of the cars and transport cable are held with two anchors that are embedded into the mountain, each pre-stressed to a strength of 600 tons.

The lower station was built at the foot of the mountain. It covers an area of 1000 square meters, and is attached to the visitor's center. The building's exterior is composed of stone veneer, stucco, and wooden screens that are used for shading. These stations allow handicapped access to the top of the mountain with a pedestrian bridge that connects the upper station to the site.

Design for tender of the Mamila Complex. Public car parks for 1,600 vehicles, and a two-level pedestrian shopping street with 300,000 square feet of retail space, as well as apartments and offices.
The project design was completed for Ladbrock. With the transfer of the project to a new entrepreneur, the implementation was transferred to the responsibility of another engineer

This new building is used as a sport center adjacent to the old swimming pool building of the university in Givat Ram.
 

The building has a total area of 2,000 square meters. It has a pre-stressed concrete façade, which is used as the main support for the building's ceilings. In addition, the building's skeleton was designed to allow for the addition of another floor. The stone veneer in the façade was made with a dry cladding technique, using hangers and steel anchors for fastening and securing the stones to the concrete.

A wide strip of windows, with a wooden shading system was affixed, wraps around the building exterior.

The building also contains a cafeteria, gymnastic rooms, a gym level, a spa area, cloakrooms, and bathrooms.

This project contains an office building and a parking lot with a total area of 45,000 square meters. The site is lined with piles on three sides in order to protect nearby roads and buildings.


About half of the building's area makes up 4  wings, each with 10 floors, which are supported by a pre-stressed transfer slab which is used as a base. Below this slab are the parking lot floors.

The building ceilings were made without an expansion joint, and are mostly made out of industrialized pre-stressed concrete slabs. The building's façades and inner concrete beams are used as the building's main supports.

The building's façades are covered in stone with glass curtain walls.

A 350 square meter fabric tent, roofing an archeological site that was excavated in Ein-Gedi, near the Dead Sea.
 

Heavy fabric sheets are stretched across the site over a central pole, and moored to the ground with anchors at several points on the perimeter.

The project was built adjacent to the historic David Yellin College. In the new 14,000 sq meter wing, is a 3 story underground parking, and above it classrooms, offices, assembly hall and cafeteria.


For the parking lot, a complicated 19 meter deep digging and retaining work was done, in order to protect the existing college building and residential buildings surrounding the site.

The building is made from reinforced concrete with stone veneer. In the top floors above the entrance level, a supporting steel construction was integrated in order to create a retreating stair pattern in the facade, between the floors.

The project was designed at the foot of Masada next to the existing museum building and access road. The building will be used as an institute for Dead Sea research.

In it are classrooms, laboratories, and an assembly hall. The existing museum building will be used by the institute.

The area of the project is around 2,500 square meters and makes up the first stage of a project of 5,000 square meters that spills over into the pathway to the existing road to the visitors entrance. A retaining wall was designed from piles in order to protect the museum and road.

The building will be made from reinforced concrete with a veneer of stone and plaster in pale hues matching the surrounding landscape.

This library was converted from a hall in a school in Ashdod.

Due to the low height of the ceilings, a minimalistic and limited design to the library was needed.

The design used a steel space frame which rests on steel columns, and a reinforced concrete slab that was cast in place and smoothed to use as a finished floor.

The conversion also required strengthening the existing foundation in the building floor and perimeter walls.

The pavilion, which represented Israel in the international exhibition EXPO in the year 1992, was built as a cone membrane tent.

The inside of the tent contained an exhibit space and a 3000 person gathering hall. The space contained a gallery from light construction.

The planners worked on a short time frame. The building had to be planned, organized, and built in only four months.

The visitor's center was built on the site of Hiriya, which was used as a landfill for the Gush Dan area. The site sits on part of Ayalon Park, at the entrance to Tel Aviv.
 

This park will house a recycling plant for all types of materials. Work is still being carried out to stabilize Hiriya, in addition to landscaping and gardening work, for the accessibility and enjoyment of the visiting public.

The visitor's center was built adjacent to an existing building that was preserved and rehabilitated. Classrooms and offices were built in the new building. Also, an upper footpath is planned for a future stage that will connect a system of exterior walkways and bridges leading to the park and the mountain.

The building is used for educational activities and workshops within the recycling plant.

The landscaping around the building speaks in the language of the recycling plant: the footpaths were made from recycled wood. The landscaping also contains ponds and diverse plant life.

The building is located at the foot of mount Masada, adjacent to the lower cable-car terminal. The building area is 12,000 square meters.
 

The visitor center was designed to supply information about the activities in the place and historical and updated information to tourists, about the Masada and Dead Sea area. In the building there are exhibit halls, an auditorium, a cafeteria and offices. The lobby is connected to the cable car station and allows easy access to Masada.

Like the cable car stations, the building is built from reinforced concrete with stone veneer and sand colored stucco.

The public park at the northern entrance to Be'er-Sheva covers an area of 3 dunams.

 

Conventional development jobs such as walkways, lawns and gardening were built, along with concrete cones with natural stone veneer, steel screens, and mosaic. The cones are hollow and rise up to10 meters in height. The cones are spread throughout the park and fit together as environmental statues.

The bridge is located on a major two way street which leads from the south of the city to the center.

 

The bridge was originally planned and built in 1981. The structure was built of a concrete deck resting on a pre-stressed horizontal beam. The ends of the beam rested on wide concrete and stone columns on both sides of the road. On one end a spiral staircase descended to the sidewalk

As a result of damage that was caused to the bridge beam by a heavy motor vehicle, the concrete beam was replaced. The alternative solution was planned of a steel space frame, built by the German company MERO, from which the deck is hung. The deck is made of a thin concrete surface cast onto thin steel sheets.

This design precluded the demolition of the existing columns and foundations, using them in the new bridge, while keeping the balance and load capacity as it was.

The dry supply base covers an area of 1,600,000 square meters. The base is laid out in a circle that is divided into sectors. The sectors are separated by walls, pathways and roads to the center of the camp.

The base was built in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense (COE). The base is used for long term dry storage of different types of army equipment, tools, and vehicles.

For this purpose, 220,000 square meters of storage buildings were built, mostly from reinforced concrete and partly buried in the ground. On top of them, a roof from steel space frames, concrete, or conventional steel frames that cover the large spans. The interior needed to be completely sealed from outside air and humidity and kept under precise conditions using control and measuring equipment.

The base also includes offices and residential buildings in the center of the camp, as well as pavilions, shelters, and facilities for maintenance and repair.

The project was completed in B-O-T method, by the winning contractor. 

The museum was built and planned to house the work of the artist Moshe Castel. The area of the museum is 2,500 square meters and it was opened to the public in 2010.


The building overlooks the road that descends from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, and consists of exhibit halls surrounding a central atrium. The roofing of the halls was made with pre-stressed concrete vaults that continue to the building's facade to create a decorative element. Slits were integrated between the vaults to let in natural light.

The building walls are made out of concrete with stone veneer.

Bridges for cars as part of Highway 1 and the Trans-Israel Highway.

4 bridges above these roads are planned.

The hostel is the first new structure built in Acre's Old City and designed by RAHAMIMOFF Architects.


The building was planned from reinforced concrete with a limestone façade that matches the architecture that characterizes the Old City. It is located at the entrance, near the Old City walls. The building was built upon archeological ruins from the crusader period that was discovered during the excavation in the site.

The building has 8,000 square meters of interior space, and sits on a five dunam property. The hostel contains guest rooms, class rooms, a dining room, patios, etc.

Due to the archeological findings, the underground parking lot was cancelled, and a system of bearing walls and beams that rest on deep piles was planned.

The location of the piles was precisely chosen by the Israel Antiquities Authority to minimize damage to the uncovered ruins. The foundation piles were narrowed to the required minimum, and used as columns rising five meters above ground, in order to allow future digging on the site and access to visitors of the findings that will be uncovered beneath the building.

The total area of the piles makes up only 2.7% of the area of the planned project.

Offices and parking 40,000 sq.m.

A memorial in Mount Herzl, that was built for the defense ministry to commemorate the Ethiopian immigrants who were killed while trying to immigrate to Israel through the desert.
 

The memorial sits on a 3 dunam site. Monoliths were built on the site from bare concrete, to symbolize the straw huts where the Ethiopians used to live. Reinforced concrete walls were built on the edges of the site, in order to create a lawn for gathering for Ethiopian people on memorial days. The area is landscaped with grass, low plants and trees.

2000 sq. protected headquarters building fortified underground.

This shopping mall and recreation center, with an overall area of 20,000 square meters, contains stores and a movie theater.


On the perimeter of the bottom floor a deep foundation was laid to protect the existing road, and to prepare for an underground parking lot and technical rooms.

The building is built out of reinforced concrete with ceilings of pre-cast pre-stressed concrete slabs. The main concourse is roofed with light metal and glass.

David Yellin College was built in the beginning of the last century. The management intended to add another floor upon the college wings and to build a new library for use by the students.
 

Because the old building's foundation couldn't bear new loads, especially the heavy loads of a library, an independent system of reinforced concrete columns was planned adjacent to the inside of the façade of the wing. Accordingly, the foundation and the facade walls were strengthened with small diameter piles (minipiles) with concrete poured on top of them.

In order to prevent the new library from overloading the wing's roof, the bookshelves were hung from the concrete roof of the new floor, creating a look of organized hanging libraries, floating in the air.

In between the new floors of the wings, the entrance hall of the college was enlarged, and a floor was added on top of it.

The cliff bridge in Masada was built immediately after the completion of the upper cable car station. It extends from the upper  terminal to the site entrance. It is 70 m' off the ground, and 2.5 m' wide.
 

The bridge allows handicap access to the site for the first time.

The bridge is a concrete deck supported by a steel space frame, and is anchored to the mountain with horizontal anchors. Because there was no access to cranes or heavy equipment on the mountaintop, the bridge was built with small tools.

Two story residential building.

Three story residential building.

Protected Structure 5,000 sq.m.

Development and construction of auxiliary buildings and entrance to Mount Herzl

The structure was built at the entrance to the Israel Museum and consisted of one large space, used for gathering and assembly.


The building was made of steel members covered in heavy fabric produced by the Italian company, "Transforma".

In 2009, the structure was disassembled for the expansion of the museum, as planned by the architecture firm, Efrat Kowalski Architects.

Hosting structure for receiving guests at the Knesset 1,500 sq.m.

Historic guest house , located in front of Jerusalem Old City Walls .The project includes restoration of the historic structure as well as a new addition ,creating all together a 2500 sq.m building.

The addition includes an auditorium , offices and conference rooms as well as landscaping and design of a vehicle approach to the building.

The bridge is made of pre-stressed, reinforced concrete with two lanes for cars. It passes above the railroad to Jerusalem.
 

The bridge is supported by pre-stressed concrete beams, of different heights and sizes, depending on the slope of the pavement and the distance between the supporting columns.

Tourist gathering shed - 2300 sq.m

The building was built for the newspaper "The Jerusalem Post".
 
 

The building consists of offices, editing rooms, reporter's offices, and etc. In addition, a printing room was built with an interior that rises up 3 stories. In this space, there is also a basement with special supports for the printing machines. A concrete foundation was also laid on the ground floor to support the heavy printing machinery.

The floor and the walls of the printing room were kept separate from the office area with an expansion joint, in order to prevent vibration from the machinery from disturbing those in the offices

This new building was built adjacent to the paper's old building. A system of piles was built in order to protect it.

Patent #189522 awarded to Labaton and partners in February 2011 is a unique "double" solution to the Red Sea - Dead Sea Canal.


It is optimized for multiple desalinization plants to extract water from the Red Sea and distribute the water through out the length of the canals.

This allows there to be up to ten smaller desalinization plants which are located close to their end users aleviating the addition infrastructure and costs of pumping the clean water back up to the end users. Due to these economic advantages the project using the patented Labaton method reduces costs by 75%.

The spacious new 2,000 square meter auditorium was added adjacent to the old college building.
 
 

The structure of the auditorium was built in the shape of a polygon with 8 sides of reinforced concrete with stone veneer. The building's hall is covered with a steel space frame construction, made by the Spanish company, DS.

The seating area was made from concrete, and a gallery, which is supported by the building's facades, was added above. Access from the old building to the auditorium was added as well as stairs and an elevator.

Hazera Genetics is the new research and development center that was built in Berurim, and has become the main building of the Berurim campus.


The building is used by the administration of the research and development department of the company, the marketing department, the site management and the procurement department, and all the labs and the researchers associated with the research and development department.

The building was planned with a two-story main administration wing with curved corridors, which connects with 4 three-story wings. In the first stage only three wings will be built.

In all, the project covers an area of 5,500 square meters.

The wings are separated from the curved main building via expansion joints. The main building acts as an independent pre-stressed unit, without joints.

The ceilings of the wings are made from pre-cast pre-stressed concrete slabs. The ceiling of the main wing is poured on site.

The foundation is built of piles, and the floors are hung above the ground and insulated with polystyrene boxes as required.

The building has low ceilings, and is finished with a combination of stone veneer and stucco, with concrete and ceramic shading elements on the wings' facades.

The site includes a parking lot adjacent to the building and an entrance hall that is roofed with a pergola.

40,000 sqm building

A community center building, adjacent to an existing school in Beit Hakerem.


The structure is made of concrete with stone veneer. The building holds classrooms, gathering spaces, offices, and cafeteria.

Next to the building, there is a 1600 meter recreational center with a steel space frame ceiling. The recreational center will be used for sporting events, as well as assembly and community gatherings.