An Interior Designer’s House in Israel Sports a Playful, Perforated Facade

The Round Edge House by Anderman Architects, built for an interior designer, her husband, and their two young children, sits in a residential neighborhood in Ramat Hasharon, a city just north of Tel Aviv.

"It’s a neighborhood of modest private houses from the 1970s; let’s call it basic modernism," explains architect Yoav Anderman. "The first thought was how to work in that neighborhood delicately—the house is a bit more of a young interpretation of modernism."

The outstanding feature of the three-story, 300-square-meter (3,229-square-foot) residence its its upper-floor facade—a white concrete wall punched through with artfully spaced holes. The latticed effect means that the home has plenty of privacy and welcome shade but doesn’t feel entirely blocked off from the neighborhood. 

To give the house room to breathe, there is a narrow, planted patio that is open to the elements between the facade and the inner windows. Meanwhile, the back of the house has expanses of floor-to-ceiling windows that open up to views of the countryside and the sea beyond. 

While drilling the concrete wall, Anderman landed on the idea of using the discarded concrete cylinders as pavement slabs. The 20-centimeter-long cylinders were cut into four pieces each and laid out in a pretty pattern in the garden at the back of the house, playfully echoing the shapes found at the front of the home. Of the process, Anderman says that he is pleased that everything found its place during the project: "It was a nice surprise that things became clear along the way." 

The family’s main living space is arranged on the open-plan ground floor. A majestic, stainless-steel, three-pronged pillar, sourced from Macalloy—a British company that specializes in cable systems and tension rods—is a striking addition and props up the floor above. 

The flooring throughout is light Scandinavian oak while birch plywood is used for built-in furniture, including a ground-floor shelving unit, clad in gray plaster, that doubles as part of the exterior wall and a clever hiding place for the home’s air conditioning.  

The client’s home office, screening room, and guest bedroom are in the basement while the second story has two ergonomically designed bedrooms and a playroom, with the flexibility to turn it into another bedroom as the children get older.  

The whole project, which took a year and half to build and was completed in 2018, is smart yet playful. The entrance—a protruding, gray plaster box—is also home to a neat washroom; here a slick, black iron sink is shaded by a tree planted in a small, open-air patio just beyond; in a clever trick the space is magnified thanks to a mirror on the wall on the opposite side of the patio. 

Although Anderman was at first hesitant to work for an interior designer, he soon put his worries to one side. "There was a great synergy between us because she’s so cool, and the whole project was wonderful."

Related Reading:

A Perforated Brick Facade Shields a Glowing London Infill Home

9 Best Homes With Interesting Screened Facades

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Anderman Architects / @anderman.architects

Builder/general contractor: Bar Engineering

Structural engineer: Doron Tweg

Landscape design company: Haim Cohen

Project management: Bar Handasa