Community Center, Jabel Mukaber
Meeting Jabel Mukaber
Jabel Mukaber is an infrastructural junction in East Jerusalem. Two main roads surround the site: one is the road connecting the inhabitants to Bethlehem and their only cultural center, the Old city; the other road is the American road, which is planned to be the commercial street.
The site is the main urban area in Jabel Mukaber. The houses are spread over the hillside and the valley and manifest the local building language. They are made of concrete or more temporary materials – easy to take down and move. The density is very low because of the inhabitants attempt to follow the building restrictions of the municipality, in hope of getting their houses legalized. Today, only one of them is legal.
The continuous suppression prevents the area from developing. There are no public spaces in the area where its inhabitants can meet, socialize, gather and develop their community and social identity. All the public life takes place in private homes. The roads are public but there are no people present, only intense traffic.
The inhabitants do not feel any responsibility or connection to the place. The roads represent the authority that suppresses the people and therefore, also becomes a mental boundary for the inhabitants. Jabel Mukaber appears as half ruins, half city. There is an atmosphere of devastation, rather than of a living city.
Building a community center for the people of Jabel Mukaber
The concept of the community center is to re-establishing a sense of place that is missing – a place of stability and a feeling of community – through an architectural framework. A place from where the people can begin to define and create their social and cultural identity. The community center should provide the people across ages with places to interact, hang out, and play after school. It would host cultural events in a safe environment without hectic traffic and on a public ground, owned by the people. The program should be adaptable to changes over time due to changes in needs. The building structure should be versatile with the possibility to include the outdoor spaces in the inside spaces and the other way around. The outdoor spaces diverse between being planned and being laid out for the people to use due to their needs.
Architectural and programmatic concept
The architectural language of the community center comes from an interpretation of the informal movement, registered in the area. The image of the path that connects the inhabitants from the hills with the valley is repeated to establish another connection that works as the spine of the community center. The path is also a constructional element, a concrete structural wall, which is repeated in the project. The programs are arranged individually, in relation to the two main outdoor spaces, the commercial centre, and the local environment.