Florentine | JWA Studio

Like for most of Jordan Weisberg’s projects, the Florentine project began with a meeting and a mutual connexion with the client. After various conversations, moodboards and sharings, the client and the architect arrived at a unique breakdown of the volumes for a new partition of the spaces with an enhancement of the dichotomy of the two apartment floors.

The apartment, a duplex, is composed of two floors of approximately 40m ² each and a terrace of 25m ². It’s located in the district of Florentine; an area in southern Tel Aviv in movement and inhabited mainly by artisans and young artists. The different spaces had to respect and reflect the architectural spirit, a mix of Bauhaus style and contemporary buildings with minimalist lines.

Jordan explains: ‘In addition to the unique and specific team work with the client before the building up, it was also necessary to consider the environment that hosts the project and around which we had to work. Before having fun with the different volumes, it was necessary first to try to understand them and then decide to assume them or not.’

Putting on the same level emotions and practice, the new partition of the space came instinctively for the studio and was mainly driven by the development of the different “views” that offers the crossing apartment from East to West. There are views of both today’s and tomorrow’s Tel Aviv, consisting of office towers and homes, and both yesterday’s Tel Aviv with these low-rise apartment buildings, the 3-4 floors Bauhaus style with pink and yellow shades.

The brief of the client was based on colourful envies, lights and a strong respect of the spirit of the place and the neighbourhood of Florentine, the client wanted to give to the two floors two distinct atmospheres: a large living room “reception” on the first level and upstairs, something more intimate. The challenge for the studio was first to have these two levels connected by a small straight stone staircase and then remodel it without distorting it.

On the first floor there’s a unique volume that structures and organise the global living space. This volume, which contains the sanitary facilities, links and harmonises the entrance, the kitchen, the dining room and the living room. The studio has opted for a raw, simple and sensual universe with a subtle game between light and refreshing tones. Moreover sunlight, subtly filtered through bamboo shutters, is even invited at any time to embrace the freshness of the room. Finally, large openings have been designed to enhance the outward views and surrounding built heritage.

With its natural palette this first floor goes back to the basics. The curved wall dividing the space brings softness and sensuality to the raw volume that contains it. Then, the glass blocks, like a nod to the Bauhaus spirit, blur the tracks by bringing natural light during the day
- especially in the bathroom - while they “get active” in the evening to inhabit the space. Evoking the soil and the mineral, this floor allows an escape and a daydream.

A concrete floor poured on site, one of the flagship materials of the young architect, links the two floors and elegantly supports the different atmospheres of the project. Upstairs, there are rooms and hosts another atmosphere: intimacy and travel.

Through this dichotomy of the highlighted floors, the two desires of the client were revealed and stimulated. On this floor Jordan Weisberg has almost kept the original distribution of the apartment, apart from the opening with a second French window to give additional access to
the large terrace and create a veranda effect to this room that extends the outdoor pergola. With these different universes intertwined, the boundaries between inner and outer and between reality and chimeras gradually fade away. On this last level we find a palette of colors sometimes evoking the Negev desert or via the patchwork of colors of the facades of Tel Aviv; but there’s also Moroccan or Mexican influences. On this floor, we go from yellow to red, crossing the orange, then purple meets the burgundy and finally the turquoise
and green surprise us to bring us gently to the blue.

Jordan adds, ‘For the studio’s first project in Tel Aviv, I wanted to work locally. This will is reflected in our choice of materials and in various collaborations with artisans from the Florentine neighbourhood, especially for the coated walls, the work on the woods, the shell
suspensions, and the bamboo ceiling; but also on the creation of custom-made elements specifically designed within the studio, such as lamps, wooden furniture, aluminum windows, kitchen furniture or the exterior bamboo shutters.'

Over the entire project, it’s the contribution of colour that structures and binds the fragmented volumes and make the spaces shimmering, green, colourful, surprising and refreshing.

Just like for the BLITZ, a restaurant delivered in Paris in 2018, the JWA studio looked for dialogue with the place, the materials, the forms: a curve responds to a straight line, the softness of a shape meets to the roughness of a solid material. The Florentine project presents again a perfect balance between a line, a curve and a solid - a singular harmony refined and mineral allying brutality and softness, which has become the signature of the studio JWA.