Moshe Safdie is an Israeli-Canadian architect, urban designer and author. He is best known for designing Habitat 67, a model community housing project in Montreal, Canada.
Safdie (born July 14, 1938) was born in Haifa during the British Mandate over Palestine.
He trained at McGill University in Montreal from 1955 until 1961. After
working two years in the office of Louis I. Kahn, he started his own
practice in Montreal. Later, he moved to the U.S. where he established an
practice and taught at Harvard.
Influenced by his graduate thesis, Safdie refined a
series of "Habitat" designs which revolved around a cellular
housing scheme. Initially his ideas proved expensive and difficult to
construct, but Safdie introduced the cellular scheme in several areas
including New York and Puerto Rico where his ideas were successfully
initiated.
His Israeli period also produced a number of impressive
urban insertion projects and various town-planning schemes.