Project name: RR – 4 Stories Apartment
Design firm: Architect Raz Melamed
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Photo: Amit Geron
Area: …
Year: 2024
Project description from design firms Architect Raz Melamed
The penthouse designed by architect Raz Melamed provides a quiet escape in a busy city. Customers from abroad came to Melamed and asked for an apartment in Israel where they would feel at home, quite literally.
The property is in the heart of the city, and consists of a rooftop, two adjacent floors, and another apartment on a separate floor. In the design plan, the architect made sure to specify their requests: suites for children/guests, a kitchen for a chef who likes to entertain, an open view, a gym, libraries for displaying and storing books, and a library that will be a reading room.
Throughout the construction, the architect and the clients walked hand in hand, and the self-taught client wanted to learn about every dilemma and find a solution for it with the professionals
At first the path was full of challenges, which Melamed solved with professionalism and creativity. The first challenge was to connect two floors to create an internal passage. The solution was one staircase that opened in the ceiling of the lower floor, and a second staircase, which connects the accommodation area on the entrance floor to the pool on the roof.
The second challenge was the swimming pool on the roof, for which dedicated reinforcements were required. Another challenge was the implementation of minimal windows for the openings – these are windows that emphasize the architect’s concept, in which he makes sure to create large glass openings without partitions for the absolute introduction of light and air.
Since there were existing openings, the solution was sawing the skeleton of the space and creating gaps for the windows and showcases, including the elimination of partition columns for a perfect corner opening.
Another challenge was the diagonal walls in the building. For this, Melamed found original solutions in diagonal carpentry details designed for the bedrooms, or construction details – for example in the guest bathrooms, where the niches were covered with stone and flooded with lighting that emphasizes their diagonals, creating a fascinating architectural game of straight and crooked.
The entrance to the house opens onto a sofa with an unusual design, with a TV wall planned in front of it that keeps the same clean line in materials and colors.
Next to the couch are black stairs with variable geometry that lead to the rooftop. They are accompanied by a black string railing, which touches at the bottom white decorative boxes, which create airiness and at the same time are used for storage and a drinks bar.
The living room overlooks the balcony, in the center of which is a decorative round fireplace that also serves as a table. Peripheral low planters were placed in the plane below the floor level using floating tiles, bringing the atmosphere to full urbanity.
The balcony lighting is integrated into the ceiling, just like in the rest of the house, with the guiding principle being to obscure it, and highlight decorative bodies that define functions such as the living room tables, the dining area and the reading area.
The black shade is diffused with touches of furniture, lighting, and elements. The touches are not monochromatic but reveal deep layers thanks to the wealth of materials such as glass, iron, stone and wood.
The suite on this floor is preceded by a reading corner with a free-standing library in the center, which combines black aluminum and glass, and in front of it are white glass doors that hide more books. The door to the sleeping space has unusual wooden grooves, the library continues with another wooden library combined with black shelves.
The room, like all the rooms, has a parquet floor and upholstered and floating furniture, framed by white curtains. The bed faces a TV wall that is covered with stone combined with wooden laths and hides a closet and air conditioning.
Decorative lighting hangs above the bedside tables, and in the center hangs a fan with a black and wooden finish, which echoes the colors of the space. The adjoining bathroom is paved and covered with stone slabs, which are softened by a wooden sink cabinet. Above it hangs a mirror that is accentuated by peripheral lighting, obscuring the obliqueness of the niche in which it was planted.
The house is served by the spectacular custom-made kitchen, and pans were even hung there on hooks that came straight from across the sea. It is designed as parallels to wooden shelves, with between them a black island with a stove and a trough sink that stores spices when cooking or a wine cooler for entertaining. Here, too, there are touches of the black shade in the hood, the air conditioning grill and the refrigerator handles.
In front of the ovens there is a hidden door that opens to the entrance to the laundry room, guest services, and bedroom suites.
In the foyer there is a wooden covered wall used to move to the apartment below, inside the private area. This is done thanks to the staircase which, with unique carpentry, turns from the wall covering into their hallway, separated by an interesting cut-off detail. Later on, the wood turns into black stairs with a changing geometry, and they lead to a space with a large wine fridge, a living room, a gym and a balcony. This floor was also designed in neutral colors alongside black touches that highlight elements.
The rooftop was designed for perfect entertaining – a luxurious outdoor kitchen near the pool, next to which is a raised deck for an elegant solution for storing furniture, as well as entrance to the pool without a ladder.
Cantilevered stairs lead to the elevated seating area and also extend to the front of the pool. It is covered with stone, as if it were a luxury resort, an island of peace and quiet that allows you to breathe deeply in a developing city.
