ZBL House - Itai Paritzki & Paola Liani Architects

“When you find yourself between two walls what do you do?” asked the master his student. “I look at the vastness of the sky master” The house is inserted in a series of row houses, not far from the university area in Tel Aviv. It is a pedestrian oasis composed of attached houses, only one story high, and filled with green areas.

Photo by Amit Geron. Published on April 24, 2013.

The building restrictions for that specific zone permit utmost a height of 4.5 mt for the facade and 6.5 mt for the roof top. The idea of this residential volume situated between two walls and two strips of green is to design the space with the natural light, excluding any full-height subdivision or typological hierarchy; only by inserting two voids that trace the movements of the inhabitants.

Photo by Amit Geron. Published on April 24, 2013.

Two shifted rectangular cutouts of light: the first, located in the center of the volume directs the light from the roof level to the ground level, which is lifted 90 cm above the pathway (kitchen, dining, living area). The second, located on the external border between the house, the pool and the garden, consents the creation of a second naturally illuminated court, on underground level. Once entering the house, one perceives the visual depth between the different levels and micro gardens of Sambucus on ground floor.

Photo by Amit Geron. Published on April 24, 2013.

The suspended passage (bridge) that leads to the night area on the first floor is a diaphragm made of metal net grid only 2 cm thick that assumes the value of a lightweight veil that refines the zenith light while extending the silhouettes of who walks through it, “in order to see nothing but the sky”.