A Plywood Intervention Tunes Up a Small Apartment in Israel

The owners added shelving and a modular sideboard that provides flexible storage and seating.

This project was submitted by S.A.I.L and has been selected as an Editor’s Pick.

“The project’s concept was to create an open-space apartment with minimal partitions, opening a view to the outside from any location in the apartment, providing natural lighting to the entire apartment, and thus creating flow and continuity between all the flat's spaces. This arises for two reasons. The first is that other than three windows in the eastern-northern region, there are no windows in the southern and western facings, and the apartment was dark and badly ventilated. The second reason is the character of the apartment’s inhabitants, as part of the interpretation of their lifestyle and beliefs. This unique family defined itself and the apartment well.

Originally, the apartment lacked its western part and had a floor area of no more than 30 square meters. Today, together with the added area, its floor area is 50 square meters, intended for a three-person family of two parents and a toddler.

The concept focused on two carpentry installations:
1. A low modular “sideboard”, divided into several parts, appearing as a continuous unit, creating continuity for sitting, while installed in separate parts combined into a single whole. The sideboard serves as a multi-function sitting zone, including a storage cabinet, a stowable living room table, a child's table with storage space, a stowable child's seat, as well as a bedding storage box. This created well-defined areas combined into a single whole. For example, we distributed the child’s playing area across many locations throughout his home, permitting exploration and independent movement in space. This is because children rarely limit their play to their designated bedrooms. This design provides the child with his own place without impairing the apartment’s aesthetics. The rounded shape of the table corner and chair intended for the child also arose from the desire to permit an aesthetic space permitting the child’s safe conduct.
2. Defining a work area – as there were no windows in the apartment’s southern and western facings, we created an open and well-defined space. With shelves, table plates, and storage “trapped” between the pillar and the wall, one can have a view, lighting, and ventilation from the living room’s and bedroom’s windows.

We chose a uniform carpentry material – plywood – for the entire apartment. Our idea was to provide a clean, continuous, and uniform design framework, as there were many uses of space and several flooring types, which were not replaced.”