Tel Aviv Duplex by the Sea

A 200 sqm duplex in the BLUE project in Tel-Aviv, designed by Michal Han.Han has designed several apartments on the project, each in its own unique style.According to Han, the initial planning and customer characterization is of great importance. Planning this apartment has deeply bonded the designer and the homeowner, influencing the design itself and changing the basic house plan beyond recognition. Following the new program, the children’s rooms have been altered into luxurious suites set on the bottom floor, each with its own exit to an English yard and a private bathroom. The suites are spacious and equipped as luxury hotel rooms. The master bedroom is a wide light-filled space set on the top floor, with an exit to the garden and swimming pool. The room is made of two formerly separate rooms and is conjoined with an RSS (Residential Secure Space) once separated as well. Joining the master bedroom with the RSS was achieved by enlarging the bathroom, turning the secure space into an ideal closet room. The common area has been flooded with light and united with the kitchen and the dining room, its open space is the first thing you’ll see entering from the lobby.

Both in the common area and in the private ones, most looks are drawn to the yard, the pool, the light and the sky. In order to create the perfect relationship between the interior and the exterior, and given that one would mostly look outside from within the apartment, the designer considers this subject as one of the cornerstones of her work. It’s important to her to address the interior-exterior relationship and maximize the connection between them. Her goal is to create spaces as airy as possible and use the view from each space as accurately as possible.  

The tenants work, study and live in the greater Tel-Aviv area. Theirs is an urban lifestyle, but the peace and quiet made possible by the apartment’s location and design is greatly important to them. The designer strongly emphasizes allowing light into the home space and playing with light and shade. The project’s location near the sea allows an interesting family environment, free of the city’s tumult and commotion, while remaining within the Tel-Aviv city limits.  

The designer specializes in putting into maximum use otherwise unwisely used spaces.The entire structure of the apartment has been changed unrecognizably by converting spaces that were designated for passage or service into meaningful areas of the home. Understanding that life is amorphic and ever changing, Han is partial to leaving options open for possible future remodeling:
-  By designing two separate entrances to the master bedroom, we’ve left the option of adding another room in the future relatively easily, simply by putting up a drywall.

- The RSS was attached to the master bedroom by enlarging the master bathroom.

- A hallway has been usefully altered into a laundry room.

- A space under the staircase has been used to create a bathroom for the children’s room.

The transition between the carefully chosen different materials creates interesting details. The parquet floor merged with the stone stairway, the combination between a sunken panel and the parquet and the play of light and shade through which the materials reflect each other. Throughout the planning, much thought was put into lighting, avoiding darkened spaces and emphasizing the play of light and shade on the palette of materials.