House E/J is located near the sea, surrounded by eclectic residential houses positioned closely. On the site there was an existing semi-detached house of only 80 sqm with a sloping roof. The construction regulations did not allow to increase the 80 sqm of built area on ground floor.
Thanks to the request of the inhabitants for a quite dense program (4 bedrooms, all equipped with private bathrooms, a separate guest suite, entrance, kitchen, dining, living, guest lavatory, laundry room, storage, shelter and parking) we found a strategy based on perceptive mechanism (light-wind) and typological devices (environment).
Location
Herzliya
Site area
375 m2
Total floor area
263 m2
N. of floors
4
House E/J is located near the sea, surrounded by eclectic residential houses positioned closely. On the site there was an existing semi-detached house of only 80 sqm with a sloping roof. The construction regulations did not allow to increase the 80 sqm of built area on the ground floor.
Thanks to the request of the inhabitants for a quite dense program (4 bedrooms, all equipped with private bathrooms, a separate guest suite, entrance, kitchen, dining, living, guest lavatory, laundry room, storage, shelter and parking) we found a strategy based on a perceptive mechanism (light-wind) and typological devices (environment).
The first consideration was to elude the surroundings and thus to create a new and protective green garden.
For reasons concerning scale and volumetric perception we decomposed the volume in two separate houses, two volumes rotated perpendicularly to one another, with a patio between them.
The elements of this habitat, base, patio, stairs, were reloaded with a new operative function: they are devices with new possible levels of existence.
The transparent base, that supports the three upper levels and reunites the functions (living, kitchen, dinning), is considered an illusion box composed of intervals in the functional spaces, such as sliding doors and a mirror. These elements expand or increase the visual limits of the site. The movements of the inhabitants in the house are fixed or hidden by new scenes of contemplation that differ according to the changing of light and reflections. The terrain is materially marked by the presence of continuous terracotta.
The patio tunnel is the insertion of zenithal light and wind into the illusion box. Above all it brings a sensorial and psychological implication of vertigo; in each floor the openings change according to the layout of the private rooms. Each bedroom has a view towards the surrounding growing garden or to the internal passage of the patio tunnel.
In order to obtain the fourth façade we’ve cut a threshold of light above the stairs located between the confining wall of the adjacent property and the house, allowing a diffuse illumination in each and every level.
The final result seems quite silent; nothing however is what it appears to be.
Location
Herzliya
Site area
375 m2
Total floor area
263 m2
N. of floors
4