Against the backdrop of the war that broke out in Israel in October 2023 (“iron Swords”), we initiated a local and intimate project titled “Jaffa Is a Safe Space.” Our understanding of Jaffa’s unique complexity – national, religious, and cultural – alongside the growing tensions in the city, pushed us to reflect on the physical space of Jaffa, a space that embodies this complexity without representing a single side or rigid opinion, and stripped of stereotypes.
As part of the project, we created a notebook and a series of large collaborative drawing sheets, featuring illustrations of Jaffa’s urban landscape. These illustrations are intentionally left open for free interpretation, allowing people and children to add their own details and color them in. Just like the physical city, the printed pages serve as a meeting point – a capsule of possible lives together.
The notebooks and sheets were printed in collaboration with the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and distributed in community centers, and bilingual (Hebrew-Arabic) schools and kindergartens across Jaffa.
The project was born out of our studio’s long-standing connection to the city, and from a close observation of the small, intimate moments in our immediate surroundings. It was our way – as a studio deeply engaged in shaping community through spatial design – to respond to the moment, stay optimistic, and above all, see the present in order to believe in the future.
