Discount 银行集团 | Setter Architects | 2024 | 以色列

The Discount Bank Group, one of Israel’s largest financial groups, recently moved to its new location in Rishon LeZion, the project was designed as a campus with three office buildings, 9 floors each, on a base of 2 shared floors, surrounding a large internal courtyard.

The built area above ground is approx 80,000 sq. m. The interior design team was a collaboration between two firms: Setter Architects and Studio BA, responsible for designing the interiors of office floors, lobbies, conference centers, trading rooms, training centers, auditoriums, synagogue, restaurants, cafés, and various public areas.

As part of the move to the new headquarters, the bank’s management made a groundbreaking decision to transition all employees to an open work environment, from the CEO and Chairman to the last employee. This decision stemmed from the vision that the bank and its employees need to progress to contemporary work environments, similar to leading high-tech offices in Israel and worldwide.

The design team developed precise and coherent planning principles that created a unified envelope of work environments, promoting flexibility, while maintaining the singularity of each company in the group.

A timeless and unified palette of materials was chosen, including wood, concrete, metal, and stone. The entrance lobbies, work areas, and meeting rooms are characterized by timeless materials, while public functions such as restaurants and cafes were designed with inspiration from street markets, using colorful materials and diverse designs to emphasize the uniqueness of each area.

Each building features an open internal staircase that directly and naturally connects all office floors, and external perimeter balconies that connect the buildings on the shared floors levels, where public functions are located. The design is meant to promote walking and movement as part of the concept of wellness and a healthy work environment.

Office floors were divided into spacious open-space neighborhoods to enhance privacy and allow for future growth. The neighborhoods are divided by “blocks” of meeting rooms of various sizes and types. As part of the circulation principles on the floor, the planning team made sure to create an internal passage between neighborhoods, in addition to the main passage along the core, to allow a natural connection between neighborhoods. An additional passage is maintained along the curtain walls to create movement visible from the inner courtyard. An additional benefit is that there are no “preferential” window seats.

The floors are divided into quarters. Each quarter is characterized by a different material: wood, concrete, stone, and metal, to facilitate orientation on the floor.

In the northern building, which is the largest of the three, a large atrium was designed, within which the planning team designed a large and impressive metal and wood staircase. The stairs connect, as in the other buildings, all the cafeterias on the floors. “Floating” meeting rooms hover into the atrium space and overlook it.

The cafeteria in the northern building, was designed as a wooden pavilion adjacent to the atrium.

Discount Bank has a large and impressive art collection, and as part of the planning principles, blank walls were left for displaying artworks. In the atrium space, a recurring adjacent wall on all floors creates a view of a stunning gallery of works.

On the public floors, 10 restaurants were planned in 4 separate dining areas. Each restaurant received a different character: a bright and airy dairy restaurant, a grill restaurant with wood and terracotta brick tiles, a street food restaurant designed as stalls inspired by a food market, a cafe inspired by Tel Aviv coffee stands, and an additional dining area for people who bring food from home.

In addition to the restaurants, the public floors include auditoriums, an elegant synagogue, a training and recruitment center, trading rooms, an employee wellness area, a music room, a communal library, and a running track on the northern perimeter balcony.

The campus entrance building includes a central lobby, a complex of meeting rooms for guests, and a conference and events hall, from which one can overlook the campus and courtyard.