Location: Tel-Aviv
Size: 85 sqm
Design and Completion: 2021
Program: Couple apartment

This 85 sqm. apartment is located on a leafy street near Rabin square, in the center of Tel-Aviv. The previous condition was completely delapidated, suffering from a lack of light, many partitions and no hierarchy. The owners, a young couple, wanted the ability to work from home together, enjoying the qualities of the house whilst having the ability to gain privacy if needed. Thus the home office, which is located in the center of the flat between the main living areas and the bedroom, allowing for a gradual transition from public to private. Steel framed glass doors are used to bring south facing light from the home office into the center of the flat. Directly opposite, an enclosed volume is highlighted in Oak veneer, this is the service space of the flat, containing a small storage room and a bathroom for guests. The bedroom is designed in the same wood using contrasting textures to create some interest whilst maintain the serenity of the sleeping space with a minimal palette. The master bathroom contains double shower features per the clients request and echoes the color tones used in the kitchen area.

Location: Tel-Aviv
Size: 105 sqm
Design and Completion: 2019-2020
Program: Family apartment

An apartment for a young family of three. Located in a historic building in the Levontin neighborhood of Tel-Aviv. The main wishes were a large open space plan allowing for gatherings and a maximization of natural light. The irregular shape of the flat dictates a clear hierarchy beginning in the entrance hallway, leading to public area, and ending in the bedrooms. The same herringbone flooring is used throughout the main areas to emphasize the openness of the plan. This warm floor sets the tone for the flat which uses earthy and natural tones as its main palette. The bathrooms create a simple but effective contrast, darker and cooler tones, emphasizing them as separate areas. Contrasts are used in other contexts to create highlights and interest. A concrete column is left untreated, a brick bathroom wall is exposed to a bedroom, a steel bookcase holds vegetation and wooden elements within. The design is clean, using straight lines to delineate the space, within this order, blank canvases are left for the tenants to make this into a personal home.

Location: Ramat-Gan
Size: 340 sqm
Plot: 356 sqm
Design and Completion: 2018-2021
Program: Single Family House

The neighborhood is at the edge of the park and the city, defined by its familiar low rise houses which share a diving wall between each two adjacent plots. Half of the existing one story house was purchased by the owners a few years back, with the dream of one day transforming it into a modern family home. Thus, from the typology of the site, the dividing or “parti” wall between the two houses and the elongated plot becomes a generator for the design. In order to maximize the gardens around the house, it is entered directly from the street along the parti wall which in-turn organizes all of the circulation in the house. A double height entrance, a black steel staircase and a skylight above, highlight this central axis from which the spaces of the house grow. As you enter the house you are greeted by long view above and directly in front of you towards the back garden, revealing the length of the site and the public functions on the ground floor. The façade is articulated as a white envelope with various openings in the mass which are separated deliberately from the accented dividing wall with the neighbor. Full height windows define the public areas, and smaller openings which give rhythm to the façade, also give privacy to the various bedrooms and washrooms. Simple and low-lying vegetation was chosen for the garden as the owners wish to see the surrounding trees grow with them on site as they slowly expand their family and become rooted in the house.

Location: Ramat-Gan
Size: 595 sqm
Plot: 620 sqm
Design and Completion: 2019-2022
Program: Double Family House

A house for two brothers. Two siblings purchased the plot together, having grown up in the neighborhood, they wished to raise their family in the area, and the opportunity to buy a plot on which two houses could be built arose. From this beginning the design opportunity was created, we wished to create deep patios which would allow excellent light to penetrate the basement and act as small underground outdoor spaces, but this could not fit on the site together with the building mass. Because of the special relationship between the clients we had the opportunity to propose an unorthodox division of the plot into two. The problem of the patios is solved by placing one at the front of the plot and one at the rear. No “straight” parti wall divides the site, the division is instead given by the sunken patios and the soft vegetation which is planted around them. This initial idea drives the design, the vertical circulation follows the sunken patios and glass curtain walls accentuate the steel staircases while bringing light inside. The curtain wall in turn divides the built mass into two clear entities, and the difference in positioning of rooms on the upper floors allow for a similarity but distinction between left and right houses, creating a whole, but distinguishing one “brother” from its adjacent sibling.

Location: Ramat-Gan
Size: 300 sqm
Plot: 310 sqm
Design and Completion: 2019-2022
Program: Single Family House

Our initial intuition was to create a dense and private façade towards the street and orient all living areas to a private back garden. We were surprised then when the clients requested a great openness towards the front street, expressing an idea of their relationship with their neighbors and community and the opportunity of using the front garden in the morning and the back garden in the evening according to the sun’s position. From this point on it became clear that the façades would open towards front and back simultaneously. From this front and back relationship the house becomes a shell, a kind of arch from side to side which contains within it the “lighter” front and back façades, containing mostly glass. The south façade, which is also the warmest in the strong Israeli sun, is shielded by shell allowing for better insulation and privacy from the closest house to the bedrooms. At the rear of the house a sunken patio is placed strategically behind the main staircase allowing for views all the way from the topmost floor to the basement level, creating an interesting vertical relationship between all public areas of the house.

Location: Tel-Aviv
Role: Project Architect
at Kimmel-Eshkolot Architects
Program: Six High end Residential Apartments

The center of Tel-Aviv is undergoing a massive regeneration in recent years, due to the approval of a citywide plan which adds up to two stories to the existing building rights in most areas in city’s northern center. This project, located in “Rova 4” was approved, when this new plan came into effect. In order to give coherence to the façade which is adjacent to an older residential building of lower height, some of the characteristics are used (a horizontal language of wide terraces clad in steel), whilst others are differentiated. A long vertical windows defines the kitchen areas but is used strategically in the façade to separate the building from it’s neighbor. The design language incorporates the classic “tel-avivian” white stucco towards the street, reflecting the sun, but the warmest south façade is shaded via horizontal bamboo louvres which double as movable shutters for privacy from the adjacent building to the bedrooms. The building is given in a balance of three materials: white stucco, black steel, and warm wood. The ground floor is highlighted in fair-faced concrete to articulate the entrance and lobby areas.

Location: Ramat-Gan
Size: 640 sqm
Plot: 512 sqm
Design and Completion: 2019-
Program: Double Family House

The program is a house for two families located on an elongated plot of limited size and quite narrow proportions. The clients were very clear from day one, that although the site is challenging, the program should incorporate all the elements of a modern villa; including a completely open space on the ground floor, an elevator, three ensuite rooms on the living floor and a mini-studio on the roof surrounded by balcony and garden. The first design question we asked ourselves was how to design the two units so as to feel like one cohesive whole and not merely glued together by the common parti wall. The horizontal language achieves this result by organizing the mass and materials by program and not by unit. The living spaces are suspended on the first floor in a white prism with deep openings articulating black steel windows. The ground floor is then separated by mass and material via setback and exposed concrete faces, with a clerestory window used to elevate the floor above. The elongated site dictates a linear organization of functions on the ground floor, from kitchen in front towards the main living room in the rear. This organization combined with the full height windows allows us to see through the complete length of the house, creating long views and making the site appear larger that it really is.