Project Name: D House
Architecture: Lavan Architects
Lead Architect: Tal Dalman
Location: Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel
Area: 250 m²
Year: 2022
Photo credits: Shai Epstein
In the heart of the bustling city of Tel Aviv, on a 225 sqm, 9 m narrow plot, we created an urban green dream for a family of five.
One person wanted a pool to swim in (and practice surfing), another wanted a luscious natural wild garden, the grown-up kids wanted their own space, and everyone wanted to create a sense of home and being together. The planning concept was to treat the boundaries of the plot – the external fence walls – as the actual external house walls. The main living area is enclosed by glass, extending a wrap-around view to the plot borders, which invites the outside greenery inside the house. The surrounding fruit trees and garden maintain privacy, from being overlooked by the nearby buildings – indeed, they are an architectural “material” of their own.
The pool, which is parallel to the house and partially roofed by the second floor, takes part in this indoor-outdoor experience and can be viewed from the living space. Even the stairs (a significant, blue-colored feature) hover over the pool, giving a full view of its full 19 m length.
Upstairs, the kids have their own front terrace with a railing made up of a combination of cables and steel frames which create a pattern inspired by the Art-Deco and Bauhaus decorative language scattered all around the white city of Tel Aviv. The cables allow the plants to grow and climb on them and create another element of privacy as well as giving a feel of the outdoors. This terrace and second floor extend over the ground floor to prevent the harsh southern sun from overheating the house but, at the same time, also allows the bright light in, while creating an outdoor shaded seating area.
We love showcasing the materials: the bare concrete ceiling and concrete wall, architectural concrete floor; the constructional steel columns – shaped as a cross + sign – are also bare and exposed, parallel layer to the glass walls. The parents achieved another gardening dream by setting their master bedroom on the lower (basement) floor, alongside the home office/secondary living room. Large windows open onto an adjacent lower garden, which gives an earthy, green retreat, complete with an outside shower.
The plot is narrow but contains everything that we required and, while building, we managed to safely maintain the attached old house to the side. To maximize every cm, the pool is made with a PVC lining. The D house was built by combining conventional methods (on-site castings) with a Light Gauge Metal Framing system method.
