Project name: TMX Garden Apartment
Architects: Raz Melamed
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Photo: Amit Geron
Area: …
Year: 2025
Project description from design firms Raz Melamed
The apartment designed by architect Raz Melamed in Tel Aviv is a pastoral paradise floating in an urban landscape.
A young couple purchased 2 apartments and wanted to combine them into a home for themselves and their 3 children. They came to Melamed and requested, during the program stage, surrounding vegetation, 2 children’s bathrooms, indoor and outdoor space for entertaining young and old friends, and parquet flooring. The apartment is located on the first floor of a tower based on a commercial center, and is a kind of ground floor apartment surrounded by a garden, for which vegetation was designed for shallow soil.
The apartments are adjacent to the core of the building, and the architect designed the entrance to the public space on the west side, so that the main balcony offers a view of the sea and sunset, while the bedrooms face east in complete privacy.
Hidden in the entrance are guest toilets that are a theatrical performance: brushed black cladding meets in detail and illuminated by black lighting, as well as the wall faucets. A freestanding white sink breaks the gloom, adorned with a Corian soap dish.
The continuation of the public space is designed as a perfect rectangle in which functions are organized in an exemplary arrangement – the kitchen, dining area and living room.
Its sides combine carpentry, kitchen and display cabinets, and for a perfect and clean geometry in the family corner there is a recess from the living room. The rectangle illustrates Melamed’s architectural concept that recurs in his projects, emphasizing a clean and defined line. The white carpentry sits on parquet that echoes in the wine cabinet, in open shelves in the island hive and in the sink area. The family corner is soundproof on one side, and continues into the living room on the other thanks to glass doors covered in fabric. In its center is a luxurious daybed and is wrapped, like the rest of the house, in a white curtain for a soft and pleasant look.
The original kitchen was closed in constructive walls that were dismantled with the approval of an engineer to open up the space. A tall, metallic gray facade parallels a large island designed for working and eating and surrounded by thin black chairs.
Above it hangs a brass lighting strip, a finish that was also chosen for the decorative lighting in the dining area. The rest of the lighting is integrated into the ceiling, while also highlighting the longitudinality of the structure.
In the center of the dining area is a white table surrounded by wooden chairs, a combination that appears throughout the house, including gray and black. Next to it is the living room, which contains bright and luxurious furniture with an emphasis on practicality thanks to washable fabrics, since this is a house with an active and happy life, just like the colorful picture on the entrance wall. In the center are a pair of tables in different colors and heights that create interest, from which to watch the television on a column and then the view.
The exit to the balcony is from the family corner and the living room, and an outdoor kitchen has been designed for entertaining accompanied by a dining area surrounded by airy chairs in happy colors. Next to them stands a magnificent pool that stands on a wooden platform that maintains a dialogue with the parquet inside. It is covered with an opening mechanism that rises and falls, which aims to protect the children’s safety and maintain the heat of the water.
The gray granite flooring of the balcony is different from the interior flooring, and it was decided to create a separation of vegetation between them throughout the garden, which created an interesting detail for anyone who goes out or enters from the outside.
The balcony is shaded by a pergola, and another part of it is hidden in the ceiling of the tower, an architectural element that creates privacy from the neighbors, and thanks to this privacy, the planted vegetation can be low and used for decoration and creating a natural look from the house to the outside.
The passage to the private area is through a hidden door from the kitchen, and when it is closed, it does not seem to continue after it. The children’s rooms are furnished in a minimalist style and with soft materials that create warmth, as in the public space. A separate bathroom was designed for the child with Zlatina flooring, and above it floats a cabinet with a free-standing mirror that solves the problem of a window behind it. The white carpentry combined with wooden moldings, a look that maintains a clean line alongside a rich form.
The hall to the parents’ room is dedicated to a quiet work area, which leads to the parents’ suite, which is also furnished with minimalism and warmth. There is an exit from it to a small garden, which is the end of the walk around the house made by paths with vegetation protruding between them.
Although it can be reached, the architect designed a children’s play area near it, including a wooden house that creates a partial barrier to the parents’ privacy.
In the bedroom, the wardrobes are in white carpentry, and from there a sliding door leads to a walk-in closet where the fronts are transparent. Opposite them is the bathroom, into which the parquet continues, and above it is a light covering, while in the shower the flooring and covering are black. The hangers and wall taps are also black, and lighting under the carpentry creates an endless appearance of the floor. This space, like the rest of the house, illustrates the precise combination of colors and materials, which, alongside a minimalist line, creates a wealth of design and a warm feeling.
