OFFSET

The project proposes a new way of thinking about the city’s edges as an engine for sustainable environmental, social, and economic development. This planning perspective considers the edge not as a line but as a dynamic space that changes over time. The project sets Garof Stream (Nahal Garof), which marks the southern edge of Eilat, as a lab for a new urban, ecological, and programmatic thinking. The program suggests rehabilitating the stream, energy storage, and research and development that function as an economic, social, and environmental engine. Located in the middle of the desert and on the shore of the Red Sea, Eilat developed around one edge that received a clear planning status – the coastline. The planning of commercial, public, and tourist programs gives precedence to proximity to the coastline, effectively marginalizing and overlooking the city’s other edges. Even though it is defined as an infrastructure strip, Nahal Garof is actually a part of a wadi system that connects the Eilat Mountains to the Red Sea. The project aims to restore the stream’s connecting role – linking the desert and the sea, the city and the desert nature – as an engine of urban resilience that develops from the margins inward.