Jabil Optics Offices – Haifa
Setter Architects were engaged by Jabil Optics, an optical design services company, to design their new offices located in Haifa, Israel.
The offices of Jabil Optics are situated in Haifa’s Matam complex and extend over three storeys.
Jabil develops innovative optical components, from the R&D stage to the precision manufacture of the component. Its customer-base comprises leading international high-tech firms engaged in security, autonomous cars, and smartphones, among others.
The clean rooms that were built in the offices allow the company to conduct advanced R&D.The design idea we applied in the offices’ design drew on the world of optics, in both physical and sensory terms, and on the way light and perspective impact on the space and the people within it.
As well as the usual functions, the entrance acts as a display site exhibiting the company’s products and innovations, where information screens are combined with metal and bamboo poles. Its location allows the movement of visitors while they observe the company’s interior through a vertical wall of plants and a glass partition wall, with an airy wooden partition on the other side.
The concept of light rays that shatter and leak finds expression in the special floor which integrates parquet and concrete. In the entrance area, the parquet floor’s rays burst out of the counter, then shatter and dissolve into the concrete, so the wooden rays of the conference rooms invite visitors to enter.
In the conference rooms, the distinctive wooden ceilings are in a dialogue with the rhythm and direction of the light rays, creating the visible “image” as they merge together.
Another unique element is the light sculpture covering a central wall in the open space. It’s a two-dimensional game of rhythm and transparency – together, the play of shattered light rays and light transitions direct people’s gaze to the 3-D light sculpture which changes with the observer’s point of view.
We created offices for research and development, stressing the employees’ requirements, a creative environment, and a warm atmosphere that combines elements from the concepts of optics that Jabil Optics deals with.
Designer: Setter Architects
Design Team: Katya Michkovsky, Bella Ventura, and Sian Kapan
Contractor: A. Weiss
Photography: Uzi Porat
