The Architect’s Ideology
Pitsou Kedem founded Pitsou Kedem Architects after graduating from the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA). The firm’s design language and concept are based on the modernist style, and his work combines period values and ideas with the modernist design philosophy. During its formative years, the studio was in constant dialogue with the fundamental principles of minimalism: reduction and moderation, clean lines for each element, and separation of structural materials as part of the process designed to avoid the insignificant to highlight the significant and refining and seeking out the essence of the space. These elements combine to produce a powerful architectural concept unwavering in its pursuit of absolute truth, purity of form and shape, and the accomplishment of a spatial experience of comfort and peace. This relentless search for minimalism yields subtle and exact components that add to its uniqueness. Most of the studio’s designs are characterized by basic geometric, rectangular, and repeating shapes that provide an authentic and integrated aspect to the building and its areas. Structural facades are homogeneous, monochrome, and devoid of ornamentation, creating the impression that they are virtually enormous. The Modern Cave concept aims to bring order to urban chaos by utilizing this architectural and design language.
Introduction | Pitsou Kedem Architects
This project, appropriately labeled “Modern Cave,” is located near Jaffa, Israel, in the Tel-Aviv-Yafo area. The renovation of a house in historic Jaffa, one of the most significant ports in the State of Israel, provides the opportunity to witness the original cave open up after hundreds of years, brighten the space, and gather the separate rooms into a single setting. Living quarters with offset rooms accessed through thick arched doors have developed from the carving of a home out of rock. Pitsou Kedem Architects were challenged with linking different sections and creating a sense of unity throughout the house.
Spatial Layout
Before the refurbishment, Modern Cave was gloomy and dimly lighted, much like a cave. The designers addressed this by bringing in a lot more natural light and opening up the living spaces to sea vistas. Aside from the living room, there is a bedroom, a study, a bathroom at the back of the property, and a dining room followed by a kitchen/living room. The kitchen is connected to the bedroom, and the living room leads to an outside terrace with sea views.
Pitsou Kedem, the studio’s director, has found himself renovating old structures to adapt them to current lives while preserving historical allusions. The Modern Cave apartment is 100 square meters, and one can tell there’s something special about it before they even go in. It has an unusual entrance door that takes up less than half of the large arched entryway. The architect’s specific style of modern minimalism in furnishing matches the space’s unique structures and forms. Creative architectural and design insertions highlight the old structure’s elegant arches, ceilings, and openings.
Concept
The architects regarded the refurbishment as an opportunity to bring more natural light into the interior and open it up to the sea. These old Jaffa rooms were created over hundreds of years, each with its personality and ground level. The renovation allowed linking the rooms and, in particular, to light and brighten the dismal space by opening it up to the sea.
Design | Pitsou Kedem Architects
The sea is visible from every room, including the bedroom, with a large arched window facing the bed. The shower platform in the bathroom even faces the sea. The newly connected sections are not closed with doors but are instead left open, with views of the sea from each. As a result, in the absence of a corridor, they serve their primary purpose and function as a method of transit in the modern cave.
Decorations added to the ceiling arches throughout time were immediately removed, and the arches were covered in white plaster. In contrast, the beautiful dome of the kitchen, which had been buried in layers of plaster, was uncovered. Depending on the room, the floor level was unified by addition or subtraction, and a new raw concrete floor with highlighted filing stones was cast.
The high ceiling makes the kitchen feel bigger and more open. The dining room may be seen from the outside. It is a small, intimate space between the kitchen and living room. It has open shelves, a small circular table, and contemporary wire seats. The pendant lamp over the table is both fashionable and cutting-edge.
Materials
The polished concrete flooring, hundreds of year-old stonework, and white plaster accentuating the premises’ brightness all aim for a natural yet modern expression. The colour combination is limited, keeping the clean emanation of the whites’ dominance; black accents; natural wood finish the arrangement; and the traditional modest coloured touch, this time in vivid yellow, jazzes up the colour composition. This project is an excellent example of mixing contemporary minimalist language and great design within a wonderful historical shell.
Fragile round glass lights, soft furniture corners, arched windows and doors, recesses, and fascinating apertures are all part of a harmonious translation of the old cave structure into a new dynamic language. The CEA steel fittings complement the whiteness of the walls, confirming the materiality of each architectural choice.
Use of Natural Light | Pitsou Kedem Architects
Light is material for Pitsou Kedem. He uses the abundant bright light in Israel to create drama in the spaces, demarcate boundaries, and create shadow paintings on concrete surfaces. Pitsou Kedem says, “Light is always in motion, and I use this quality in minimalist spaces to successfully produce a dimension of movement and time.” The rooms are organized along a longitudinal axis that eradicates all constraints and goes straight to the horizon, to the sea, the building’s vanishing point, imagined as an optical apparatus capable of gazing towards scenarios of freedom, where the imagination is free to dance uninhibitedly. Water, together with light, becomes the new critical point for this form of structure that has emerged from the past to tell a new story.
Kedem combined all the rooms into a one-flowing environment, similar to an underground lair in a hidden passageway. By masterfully mixing the old and new, they designed a contemporary home that celebrates its historic heritage while being well-suited for modern-day use.
References
Pitsou Kedem. (n.d.). homeslider2020. [online] Available at: https://pitsou.com/ [Accessed 22 Sep. 2022].
www.architonic.com. (n.d.). PITSOU KEDEM ARCHITECTS architecture projects on Architonic. [online] Available at: https://www.architonic.com/en/microsite/pitsou-kedem-architects/5209158 [Accessed 23 Sep. 2022].
Oddo, F., 2022. Pitsou Kedem, house in the historic centre of Jaffa | Abitare. [online] Abitare. Available at: https://www.abitare.it/en/architecture/projects/2019/02/03/pitsou-kedem-house-historic-centre-jaffa/ [Accessed 21 September 2022].
Morollo, M.K. (2020). Explore a Mysterious Cave-Like Home Near Tel Aviv’s Old Jaffa Port. [online] Dwell. Available at: https://www.dwell.com/article/old-jaffa-house-3-pitsou-kedem-b57299f7 [Accessed 23 Sep. 2022].
Kate (2017). Modern Cave House With Sea Views. [online] DigsDigs. Available at: https://www.digsdigs.com/cave-house-with-sea-views/ [Accessed 23 Sep. 2022].
Inhabitat – Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building | Green design & innovation for a better world. (2017). Centuries-old apartment in Israel transformed into a remarkable modern ‘cave’. [online] Available at: https://inhabitat.com/centuries-old-apartment-in-israel-transformed-into-a-remarkable-modern-cave/ [Accessed 24 Sep. 2022].
