Trees grow through glazed facade of Tel Aviv homes by Paritzki & Liani
Paritzki & Liani Architects has completed a pair of apartments in central Tel Aviv which are organised around a mini courtyard filled with trees.
Located on a corner plot in the densely populated Kerem HaTeimanim neighbourhood, the four-storey Y/K Building contains two multi-level apartments that offer residents a connection with nature.
Trees grow up through a four-storey void at the building's corner. A facade of translucent glass planks partially screens these trees from the street, yet residents have a prime view.
The layout designed by locally based Paritzki & Liani Architects gives both homes a bedroom that faces directly towards the tree branches.
Studio founders Itai Paritzki and Paola Liani said the aim was to create "a garden of wandering plants and herbs that climb and traverse every edge".
"It serves as a filter between the busy streets, and the internal spaces and terraces," they told Dezeen.
Y/K Building was designed for a young couple who inherited the plot from family. It creates a four-bedroom home on the ground and first floors, and a three-bedroom home on the upper levels.
The two visible facades were largely glazed, with exposed steel frame I-beams creating a grid-like feel.
Most of the living spaces are fronted by sliding glass doors and juliet balconies, to allow airflow. It is only the courtyard and some of the ground-floor rooms that feature the vertical glass planks.
These translucent planks give the building a curved corner. Each one is separated by a gap of three centimetres to offer additional ventilation.
"These gaps allows air to penetrate the inner garden, resulting in a ventilated greenhouse that allows the inner tree to grow without heating the inner space," explained Paritzki and Liani.
Entrances to the two homes are located on opposite sides of the courtyard.
The first apartment has living spaces on the ground floor, opening out to a small garden at the rear, while bedrooms are located upstairs.
The second home can be accessed by lift or stairs. It is entered from the uppermost level, via a living space that opens out to a spacious roof terrace. Bedrooms are located on the floor below.
The building also contains a small parking garage with multi-level parking.
Y/K Building is not the first Paritzki & Liani Architects project to be designed around trees.
The studio has also completed Eucalyptus House, a house with a tree slotted into a gap in its facade, and IS House, a residence with a tree concealed behind its walls.
With this latest design, Paritzki and Liani hope they have also captured the chaotic style of the neighbourhood, which they describe as "new constructions and cut-outs of interstitial voids".
"Y/K Building is a place for introspection into urban quotidian life," they said.
"The fluidity of building and vegetation allows you to peek between the trees and the interior spaces of the house."
The photography is by Amit Geron.
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