The concrete house | Dan & Hila Israelevitz Architects LTD

Who among us is not familiar with the term "mood board" - the basis on which the design of the house is planned and from which the colors and materials of the project are drawn. In this villa there is no doubt that the mood board was based on... well, concrete slabs. Because the owner of the house, who's been active in the concrete field for years, has a strong connection to this material, he decided to design a house for his family based entirely on concrete. The architects chosen to plan and design the project were Dan and Hila Israelevitz. "The customer really likes concrete as a material," states Hila Israelevitz. "So obviously his house speaks the same language, and we decided to take this to the extreme."

"The house is made up of two rectangles, one of which sits on top of the other and is slightly offset", Israelevitz continues. "Together they produce two boxes, one sitting on top of the other with a slight curvature. The house is built on a 500 sq.m plot, and putting the two rectangles one on top of the other enables us to utilize the plot in the best possible way and leave a large open area for the yard and the swimming pool, which is parallel to the house. In this way the entire public floor, which includes the living room, the kitchen and a suite, overlooks the pool." 

And the concrete, make no mistake, is expressed on the inside, just as it is expressed on the outside. "It's architecture and interior design that become one harmonious creation, in one total language throughout. The concrete on the outside is expressed also inside with bare concrete walls, with both the floor and ceiling being made of concrete but each of them is made differently and looks different - whether it's in terms of shade or the type of finish. The concrete of the walls is formed in the shape of planks and on the ceiling it is formed as slabs. For the floor we chose smoothed concrete with a different shade and a smooth texture."

"The woodwork items in the house are very monochromatic," Israelevitz continues. "The kitchen is in shades of wood and graphite, which the concrete compliments very well. They also create a balancing warmth in the space. The stairs are made of bare iron; we actually used iron plates which protrude from, and are supported by, the concrete wall. In the same way that we chose not to cover the bare concrete, we chose not to cover the stairs.

There are many places in the house with exposed concrete, but there are a few places, such as the bedroom, where we chose to use wood-colored concrete tiles that speak the same language, but not exactly. The cleanliness is very clear throughout the house. There aren't too many elements, but the space speaks for itself."

Israelevitz elaborates on the last point, which refers to the cleanliness of the space. "There is no attempt here to create too many decorative elements to decorate the space; it is very clear and speaks for itself. The lighting in the central space, for example, is very minimalistic, mostly technical and embedded in the concrete. The windows are also minimalistic and have been designed in traditional Japanese style, according to which the doors and the openings are designed in advance according to the image that we want to see from the outside, and actually serve as a sort of frame for a picture - of the yard and the garden. When the young flora proliferates and grows, the windows and doors will form pictures that enter the space. From our point of view, the architecture and the garden are the art that completes the house."

"The colors in the house create a warm ambience," says Hila Israelevich in conclusion. "There is a tendency to think that white represents warmth, but this is something we have been taught to think. As far as I am concerned, white is something cold. It is difficult for us to imagine this because we have become used to thinking in a certain way, but after going through an architectural process, what happens to me in most cases is that at the end of the process the clients say 'Listen, now I understand what you were talking about'. Our shades create intimacy, and it's amazing how a shade or a material has such an effect on us. It's hard to explain it to people who haven't experienced the process."