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The Lighthouse – Tel Aviv-Yafo’s Maritime Innovation Unit
The Challenge
The sea is the largest and most important natural resource on Earth. Global climate change has drawn humanity’s attention to the sea as a potential source for tackling and formulating solutions to the climate crisis. One of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals is dedicated entirely to the sea – “water below life”. In at least four other sectors, the sea plays a central role: Innovation Climate, Clean Energy, Clean Water, and No Poverty. It is not surprising, therefore, that the UN has defined the current decade as the “decade of the sea,” and the European Union has recently dedicated about a billion euros to programs in which the sea is a significant element in sustainability issues. According to the OECD forecast, the maritime economy will grow at twice the rate of the general economy.
Our Role
Israel’s government decided, as part of an in-depth research and economic effort in the field of the sea, to transfer an area of 400 meters adjacent to the beaches to the responsibility of the local authority.
The coastal strip of Tel Aviv-Yafo is an important cultural, tourist, and economic backbone of the city. As a municipal corporation owned by the municipality, Atarim Group manages and develops the Tel Aviv-Jaffa coastal strip. Upon the transfer of the marine area to the management of the local authority, the Atarim Group decided to establish a marine innovation development unit called “Migdalor” (‘Lighthouse’), which will explore the blue urban space and formulate a dedicated strategic plan for economic, public, and academic use as a means of maximizing the potential inherent in sustainable development of the marine space for urban, national and global uses.
Tel Aviv-Yafo’s urban marine space is an opportunity to develop and formulate a variety of advanced and innovative solutions in the connection between the city and the sea.
build, together with the Atarim team, led the formulation of the strategic action plan for Migdalor, that in its turn would set the frame for spatial planning, design policy and decision-making.
