 
|
|
 
|
Style with a house
House of the Season: Levin House, Ganei Yehuda
An identifiable jargon is one of the important aspects in every creator’s work style. In architecture as in every language, permanent “words” are used to convey changeable messages. So in literature, art, music. However, architecture complicates matters a little, for not only does the nature of the message change from work to work, but so does the purpose. As a practical media that is supposed to express the user’s needs, along with social, cultural and local aspects, its creative margin is relatively narrow. This is considerably tangible with private homes, where the personal taste of the owner, his special needs and preferences, become central.
Through the public and commerce buildings they have planned over the last few years, Mann-Shinar have established an identifiable planning language that is based, among others, on free flowing space under round hovering roofs. Most evident of this are the supporting structures at Ben-Gurion airport, which have become an acknowledged building style, even when planned by other architects.
Built, quite naturally, in this style, the house in Ganei Yehuda is the epitome of the architectural jargon of the office. However, in spite of the hovering roof which shouts afar the office trademark, a system of conventional spaces around an inner courtyard creates a well-ordered home. The courtyard, flooding the house with natural light through - again - a characteristic aperture in the roof, grants the house the sense of partially in/partially out, while air circulation is controlled by openings in the space between roof and walls.
Functioning as independent units, the rooms are connected by a movement axis beginning in an entrance path which floats above a fish-pond, then bypasses the inner courtyard to reach the back yard.
Bedrooms are located on the western side, the study and kitchen - at the east, and the living-room opens to the back yard at the south.
Amir Mann-Ami Shinar Architects.
illustrations ahead
