PEZ together with Zarhy Architects win 1^st prize in an invited competition for a new innovative agricultural high school and junior high on the Mikve Israel Campus, a unique Agricultural Youth Village dating from 1870, located outside Tel Aviv.

We are happy to announce that the Tel Aviv Municipality has approved the design plan of the new Engineering building on Tel Aviv University Campus! The new Building (our 2nd on campus) forms part of the cluster of Engineering buildings. The ten-story building will house state of the art ‘wet’ laboratories and ‘dry’ research office space custom made for each and every researcher. Flexibility, thus is the name of the game. Therefore, the concept of the building consists of an exoskeleton, a structural envelope that reflects the building’s forces diagrams, freeing the interior spaces from structural elements and creates the building’s architectural identity. The building’s ground floor is an open, sloped, following and continuing the campus’ landscape and creating a new kind of working and meeting space where researchers, students and industry professionals can meet and interact.

We see the extension as a continuation of the existing system – featuring a clear articulation of plinth/terraces and freestanding volumes. The new volume’s clearly differs from the existing ones in terms of both scale as well as materiality. It is conceived as a 33×33 meters square. The composition of old and new creates a whole greater than the sum of its parts and gives meaning to the entire campus, including the existing sports hall. Both the extension as well as the renovation of the existing buildings uses the same strategy – concentrating all fixed elements in the perimeter, notion of a flexible buildings and aims at maximizing pedagogical potential and possibilities.

We are happy to share our contribution to the high profile invited competition for V-Zug HQ. We imagine the building as a pristine box, hovering above an open and inviting ground level. It is simple, yet intricate, featuring precise gestures that transform it to a bespoke, custom-made building fitting V-Zug needs and aspirations. Similar to the integrity and honesty of the V-Zug products, we believe that the new building should practice the same approach, it is therefore stripped to its essential ingredients. The building’s wooden-concrete structure is not only efficient and sustainable, but also creates its identity and sense of place.

How can one design an entrance to a new museum complex without neither building above ground nor compromising the Plateforme 10 cultural landscape? Rather than adding additional construction, we propose to use the existing Poste Directeur in a new way. It is a reminder for the site’s industrial history and as the new entrance gateway for the new museum. Its vertical volume on the eastern side is emptied, serving as the museum’s main entrance hall as well as a contemporary exhibition space, leading to vast underground exhibition spaces surrounding the turn table ‘patio’.

How can we create a healing environment? Both new buildings share a distinct formal strategy: a combination of a rational geometry juxtaposed with a curvilinear substruction that is used in order to overcome the site’s anomalies and to define the building’s entrances and their public heart. Within this communal formal language, each of the buildings is articulated differently:

PEZ wins 2nd prize together with WSP Switzerland for the extension and renovation of JVA Bostadel in Mezingen. Our proposal generates a new ensemble with high quality architecture for the prison facility blending seamlessly on the existing complex.

We are happy to share images of our recently completed `Helmsley Science Building` at the Tel Hai Academic College. The building is a unique synergetic hub between academia and industry partners in the Galilee region, promoting interaction and creativity among life science researchers and students who benefit from a shared working environment that takes advantage of the natural surroundings.  With 15 life science research groups, bioinformatics laboratories, researchers’ offices, and public areas, the building spans 3,765m2, offering generous spaces for collaboration and innovation. It provides a welcoming and inviting working environment for both researchers and students, fostering a sense of community and encouraging knowledge exchange.

The project presents two key challenges: firstly, the need to establish a sense of unity among buildings situated across various plots, and secondly, the imperative to prioritize sustainability while preserving existing structures and architectural integrity. Our concept revolves around achieving unity while embracing diversity. We employ a singular building typology and construction approach, adapting them to varying scales and functions. This approach fosters a distinctive communal identity and tailored solutions for each context and program. Our project draws inspiration from its surroundings, seeking to reinterpret local and contemporary constructions through a deep understanding of the environment. This strategy not only harmonizes with the materials in the vicinity but also promotes consensus in construction methods across different buildings. Regardless of program scale, we implement a streamlined, adaptable wooden construction process capable of integrating existing structures and accommodating diverse topographies. Each building’s placement, sun orientation, and topographic considerations result from a meticulous analysis, ensuring an optimal fit within its specific context.

Excited to announce that the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University (completed 2021) has won the Rechter Architecture Prize for young architects! The enclosed campus paradigm of the Tel Aviv University is challenged for the first time in 34 years as a new building re-connects the city and the campus. The building houses both R&D Center for a worldwide leading semiconductor company together with the Tel Aviv University Engineering Faculty, creating a unique meeting point for academia and industry.

En el apasionante mundo de la arquitectura, donde la creatividad y la innovación son fundamentales, STUDIOPEZ se destaca como un estudio internacional con una filosofía clara: «Dramatizar, nunca. Simplificar, siempre». Fundado en 2011 por Pedro Peña Jurado y Daniel Zarhy, STUDIOPEZ tiene su sede en Basilea (Suiza) y Tel Aviv (Israel).

Pedro Peña & Daniel Zarhy

PEZ is an international architecture studio based in Basel, Switzerland and Tel-Aviv, Israel. It was established in 2011 by Pedro Peña Jurado and Daniel Zarhy as a continuation to their ongoing collaboration while working at Herzog & De Meuron.