Applying this sweeping approach to the Tel Aviv
residence, Lissoni formulated the L-shaped, bi-level
footprint of the house, the garden, the numerous pools,
the advanced climate-control system – even the
interiors and furnishings. He mixed a ‘cocktail’, as he
says, of his own furniture designs and others he
admires, along with antiques from China, Japan and
Israel, and the owner’s personal art collection. The
materials are ‘as neutral as possible’, he explains, and
match a floor of local grey marble with whitewashed
plastered walls and a dramatic black steel staircase,
creating a museum-like coolness that underlines the
calm efficiency of the home – a retreat from the heat
and vigorous urban energy of Tel Aviv.
The greenery, designed together with local
landscape architect Mohr Avidan, appears to grow
from the structure itself in a vaguely formalised way.
Vines sprout from crevices, buds poke through outdoor
steps and long desert grasses cluster along the
edges to soften the hard lines of the structure. Lissoni
describes it as an ‘Italian garden’ (despite the Israeli
plant varieties), because it is ‘artificially natural’ –
planned, but seemingly unplanned and perfect in the
Italian style.
The building’s visual purity belies the complexity
of its design. Lissoni kept the pillars and supports in
the lofty interiors to a bare minimum – despite the
entire walls of sliding glass – and the house’s inner
workings, those ‘veins and nerves’, are fantastically
intricate, full of cutting-edge mechanisms in the floors,
roofs and walls that remove heat from the air.
Surrounded by a series of pools, the house seems to
float on water, softening the effect of the hulking
concrete blocks. Yet even the water is functional, with
an elaborate evaporation system that cools the air and
reduces energy use – a must in such a sun-warmed part
of the world. ‘The architect’s duty is always to design a
building but also to consider what a human being
needs from the building,’ says Lissoni. ‘We make spaces
for human beings, after all.’ ∂
lissoniassociati.com Styling: Alexandra van der Sande Studio, vandersandestudio.comLEFT AND BOTTOM, A
PERGOLA LOOKS ACROSS
A POOL TO THE MASTER
BEDROOM, AFFORDED PRIVACY
BY THE WOODEN SCREENS
CENTRE, LISSONI’S ‘MEMO’
TABLE FOR LEMA WAS
PRODUCED AT A SPECIAL
LENGTH FOR THE SPACE,
WHICH ALSO SHOWCASES
THE CLIENT’S COLLECTION
OF ART AND OBJETSIn Residence
134 ∑