Location: 6 Hashomer St. Tel-Aviv
Client: Avital Nechasim L.T.D.
completion date :2004
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This building is located at the heart of Tel Aviv’s historical area, on a side pedestrian street adjacent to the city’s central food market. This quarter dates back to the early thirties of the 20 th century. Here an effort was made to design a building with the kind of human and friendly spirit that characterizes this old quarter.

The walk from the street to the building is via a sequence of transition areas that open onto each other and bring the residents home gradually. The entrance to the semi-private garden alongside the building is via a gate that opens from the sidewalk .The orange trees planted along the path adorn the building’s main entrance door. That door leads to a spacious staircase, which opens onto a spacious lobby at the different levels of the building. High windows offering a view to the garden illuminate that space.

The pattern of gradual transition from the public street to the private building, by spaces that both connect and separate them, is repeated inside the apartment themselves. An entrance hall leads gradually from the main entrance door at the lobby of the apartments to the living areas. The balconies and the ”French windows” separate the street and the garden from the apartments and at the same time create the ongoing live dialogue between them.

At the front of the ground floor there are shops that open onto the pedestrian street, forming an extension to the arts and crafts fair held there. The back façade features small studio apartments that open onto private gardens.
On the higher floors there are 1-2 bedroom apartments. Those at the roof level have roof terraces that offer a magnificent view of the sea of Tel-Aviv at the distance.

The use of plaster for the exterior, stone for the windowsills and the thresholds, the decorated mosaic used for the floor tiles and stairs, all originated from the architectural language inherent in the place where this building was designed.