Where Community Meets the Yarkon
TEL AVIV 007
There are neighborhoods in Tel Aviv that function primarily as addresses—places where people sleep before departing for the real business of their lives elsewhere in the city. And then there is Bavli. To those who live here, who have planted their roots in its tree-lined streets and raised their children in its schools, Bavli is not merely a neighborhood but a way of life, a community so tightly woven and warmly embracing that longtime residents speak of it with an affection usually reserved for small towns or childhood homes.
At 22 HaKnesset HaGdola Street, on a corner lot that looks out toward the magnificent expanse of Yarkon Park, a boutique residential project is taking shape that promises to capture everything that makes this neighborhood extraordinary. Seven floors. Twenty-two apartments. Just three units per floor. This is not mass housing but something more intimate, more considered—a building designed for people who understand what they have found in Bavli and want to preserve it.
The conditional permit has been received, marking a crucial waypoint on the journey from architectural vision to physical reality. What awaits is a demolition and reconstruction project that will replace an existing structure with something new, something designed by the architects at UR PLATFORM under the direction of Adar Saker, something that aspires to become the definitive luxury boutique address in a neighborhood that has never lacked for desirable places to live.
To understand why this particular project generates such anticipation requires understanding Bavli itself—and that understanding begins, inevitably, with the park.
Yarkon Park is not simply green space adjacent to a neighborhood; it is the organizing principle around which life in Bavli revolves. The park stretches along the banks of the Yarkon River, offering kilometers of paths for walking, running, and cycling. Families spend their weekends here, children learning to ride bicycles on car-free paths, parents pushing strollers beneath canopies of trees, grandparents settling onto benches to watch the eternal parade of neighborhood life pass by. The park encourages movement and health, makes exercise a natural part of daily existence rather than a chore requiring special trips to distant facilities. It calms the spirit in ways that are difficult to articulate but impossible to miss once experienced.
HaKnesset HaGdola Street runs parallel to the park in what residents consider its finest section—close enough to the greenery for daily immersion, positioned to maximize views and access without sacrificing the residential tranquility that distinguishes Bavli from busier corners of Tel Aviv. Number 22 occupies a corner position, which means park views from multiple orientations, which means light from multiple directions, which means a relationship with the natural landscape that permeates the living experience rather than existing only from certain windows.
The street itself carries qualities that experienced Tel Aviv residents know to value. It is one-way, which reduces through traffic and the accompanying noise and safety concerns. It is quiet in a way that can feel almost suburban while remaining thoroughly urban in its connectivity. The neighborhood grocery store lies nearby, as do playgrounds where children gather after school. Schools populate the surrounding blocks—institutions that have evolved alongside the neighborhood's population and are regarded as among the finest options available to Tel Aviv families.
Dekel Country Club offers fitness and social amenities within easy reach. The new Likiz studio has added contemporary wellness options to the neighborhood's offerings. And perhaps most remarkably for a location so embedded in established residential fabric, one can walk to the beach without crossing a single street—following paths through the park that lead eventually to the Mediterranean shore.
The major thoroughfares that define Tel Aviv's transportation grid—Namir Road, the Ayalon Highway—remain accessible for those moments when automotive speed is required, yet their noise and intensity feel removed from daily life on HaKnesset HaGdola Street. This is the particular genius of Bavli's location: connected to everything, insulated from the costs of that connection.
The community itself forms the final and perhaps most important element of Bavli's appeal. Those who know the neighborhood describe its residents as salt of the earth—a mixture of young families drawn by the schools and parks, and older residents who arrived decades ago and never found reason to leave. The social fabric is tight here; neighbors know one another, look out for one another's children, gather for holiday celebrations and weekend barbecues. The kindness that characterizes interactions feels genuine rather than performative, rooted in years of shared experience and mutual investment in the neighborhood's wellbeing.
Into this context, the project at HaKnesset HaGdola 22 has been conceived as something more than additional housing stock. With only twenty-two apartments spread across seven floors, with just three units sharing each level, the building will maintain the intimate scale that allows genuine community to flourish. This is not a tower where anonymity prevails; this is a boutique development where residents will know their neighbors, where the community of the building will integrate naturally with the community of the neighborhood.
The architectural vision from UR PLATFORM reflects an understanding that design at this level must serve the realities of daily living while elevating them through thoughtful consideration of space, light, and proportion. Each apartment has been planned to maximize the utility of every square meter—an essential discipline in a market where space carries such premium value.
But it is the signature penthouse that captures the full ambition of what luxury living in Bavli might become. Occupying the upper reaches of the building, positioned on the northern corner with unobstructed views toward Yarkon Park, this residence has been conceived as a complete experience rather than merely an accumulation of square footage.
Interior architect Gad Halperin has approached the design with a particular sensitivity to the site's relationship with its surroundings. The central living spaces open to soft northern light—that quality of illumination that requires no blinds, that accompanies the day with a gentleness particularly suited to the Mediterranean climate. The orientation toward the park means that views extend into greenery rather than urban density, that the daily visual experience involves trees and sky and the slow movement of the Yarkon through its course.
The transition between interior and exterior spaces has been designed to feel almost effortless. Wide doors lead to terraces that function as extensions of the living areas, blurring the boundary between inside and outside in ways that make the most of Tel Aviv's climate. The private rooftop unfolds as an entire additional level of living space—featuring a swimming pool for hot summer days, a jacuzzi for cooler evenings, an outdoor kitchen for entertaining, and open areas for gathering beneath the sky.
The material palette speaks to sensory experience as much as visual appeal. Natural wood brings warmth to spaces that might otherwise feel cold in their contemporary lines. Dark metal elements convey strength and substance. Lighting has been designed to embrace spaces gently rather than flood them harshly. And living greenery—plants that echo and harmonize with the parkland below—integrates nature into the domestic environment.
The design philosophy articulates a vision of relaxed living in the heart of Tel Aviv, facing Yarkon Park—a place where the energy of the city remains accessible while the calm of nature predominates, where entertaining comes naturally and retreat feels equally available, where the penthouse becomes not just a home but a complete experience of how life might be lived at its finest.
Full personalization is offered for these signature penthouses, acknowledging that buyers at this level arrive with their own visions of how domestic space should be organized and finished. The architectural framework provides the bones—the proportions, the orientations, the fundamental relationships between spaces—while individual owners shape the details that transform remarkable spaces into personal homes.
The conditional permit represents a significant milestone, though work remains before construction can commence. When it does, an existing structure will give way to something new—a building designed for the realities of contemporary living while honoring the qualities that have made Bavli beloved for generations.
Twenty-two apartments. Seven floors. Three units per level. A corner position with park views. A neighborhood where community still means something tangible, where children grow up knowing their neighbors, where the park serves as a daily companion rather than an occasional destination.
In Bavli, where young families and longtime residents share streets that feel more like village paths than urban thoroughfares, where the Yarkon curves through parkland that transforms the meaning of metropolitan life, 22 HaKnesset HaGdola prepares to take its place among the addresses that define what it means to live well in Tel Aviv—not despite the city's intensity, but in harmony with everything that makes it remarkable.
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