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Palestine and Israel | 2014

Architects: Christoph Hesse Architects
Client: GLOBUS: The Global Urban Studies Institute, Free University of Berlin 

In 1999, in the so-called “Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum” the leaders of Israel, Palestine, the United States, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Nations agreed to work on the following “Peace Projects”:

• A stable and safe Gaza - West Bank passage

• A seaport for Gaza to connect Palestine to the world

• A free trade zone shared by Israel and Palestine

• A strategy to solve the water shortage in the area

• A concept to reverse the shrinking of the Dead Sea

• Since 1999, nothing really happened.

The promising situation was overshadowed by constant conflicts and several wars. However, the time has come to re-examine the memorandum with serious effort. The aim of this planning project is to design the five points and to start implementing the “peace projects” instead of arguing and fighting all the time.

CONCEPT
The main idea is to combine a road, a railway line and a water connection to create a stable Gaza-West Bank passage and a water connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea to produce drinking water in these hot and dry climate conditions and to reverse the dramatic shrinking process of the Dead Sea.

PROGRAM & OUTPUT
Programs that plug into that “infrastructure lifeline” are a seaport for Gaza with attached urban facilities, a free trade zone shared by Israel and Palestine and hydroelectric power plant at the bottom of a water reservoir with a hotel at the Dead Sea. Using the reverse osmosis process the sea water would be cleaned and desalinated only by natural pressure. Furthermore, green energy would be produced for more than 250.000 households in Israel, Jordan and Palestine.