News: Herzog & de Meuron has been chosen to design the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem after the initial competition winner was dismissed over a copyright dispute.

The Swiss firm won out against international architects Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano along with three Israeli architects – Kolker Kolker Epstein, Kimmel Eshkolot and Dina Amar and Avraham Korial.

Entrants to the relaunched competition were not asked to submit detailed plans for the building but instead underwent an interview with the competition jury. No images of the winning project are available yet.

Herzog & de Meuron's appointment comes just four months after Israeli architect Rafi Segal was ousted from the job when one of his former colleagues at the Harvard School of Design challenged his ownership of the winning design.

Bing Wang said she and her company, HyperBina, had worked on Segal's entry and should have been credited for their role when the announcement of the winner was made in September 2012.

Segal, who has has launched a legal challenge against the project backers' decision in the the hope of being reinstated, said he had intended to name the full design team as soon as he had permission to publicise his win. A Jerusalem court is due to consider Segal's claim on 8 May.

Construction recently started on two Herzog & de Meuron-designed projects in Europe – a football stadium in Bordeaux, France, and an outdoor bathing lake in Riehen, Switzerland. See all architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.

Other libraries we've reported on lately include Snøhetta's completed a library at North Carolina State University featuring a robotic book retrieval system and a 3D printing workshop, while a library dedicated to design has recently opened in Seoul, South Korea. See all libraries.

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for National Library of Israel appeared first on Dezeen.

The louvred panels fold around two of the house's elevations and sit flush with the white-rendered walls to create a completely flat facade. They screen every window to moderate light and privacy levels inside the house.

Each screen is mounted to either a hinge or a pivot on the side or on the top, forming a mixture of doors and canopies. They can be opened in any combination to open or close different rooms out to the garden.

"We can achieve a composition that is balanced, dynamic, haphazard, closed or open within the same framework," explain the design team.

Pitsou Kedem designed the two-storey house for a family living in Kfar Shmaryahu, Israel.

Behind the timber screens, the house contains an open-plan living room, dining room and kitchen that wrap around a staircase at the rear. Four bedrooms occupy the floor above.

The rear elevation is fully glazed and recessed, creating a sheltered first-floor balcony and a ground-floor terrace below.

Pitsou Kedem's studio is based in Tel Aviv. Past projects include a furniture showroom for B&B Italia and a refurbished apartment with a vaulted stone ceiling. See more architecture by Pitsou Kedem.

See more architecture and interiors in Israel, including a house with two matching concrete blocks.

Photography is by Amit Geron.

Here's a project description from Pitsou Kedem:

The arrangement of objects in a given space or a defined format in order to give meaning to the placement and arrangement of the items, the result of the relationship between the object and the framework of the artistic creation.

A private, family residence in an urban environment. From without, the building does not reveal that it is a home. It resembles a mold or an artist's canvas or an almost two dimensional frame within whose area various openings have been placed and which are enveloped with a dynamic system of wooden, linear strips.

The planar distribution of the "picture" or, in this case the front façade, creates a non-symmetrical composition which pulls towards the flanking faces in an attempt to suggest that this is, in fact, a three dimensional mass. The arrangement of the objects (the openings) is always fixed and allows for one central and permanent composition.

The ability to reverse the balanced composition into a dynamic one is made possible thanks to the design of a system of smart blinds that allows the blinds to be lifted upwards whilst they are folded into what resembles a roof. All the rails and fixtures are hidden and so, when the façade is closed the dynamic and changing possibilities hidden in the residence's façade are not apparent.

All the openings open separately and so allow for different compositions. At any given moment and for whatever reason (privacy, protection from the sun) the relationship between the object and the plane can be changed. Thus we can achieve a composition that is balanced, dynamic, haphazard, closed or open within the same framework.

Movement through the house is accompanied (thanks to the flexible blind system) by different views of the outside, some exposed and bare, others undisguised and others framing a section of landscape especially designed for it. This selfsame changeability and flexibility also allows control of the amount of sunlight and natural light entering through the openings and into the homes spaces. These spaces are characterized by a restrained use of materials and form so that the light penetrating the space creates a sense of drama, movement and dynamism which seems to breathe life into the souls of the silent walls.

Thus, in effect, the system of relationships between the street and the structure composed of changing, but two dimensional compositions on a framed and flat plane develops, for the user of the house's spaces, an open area that incorporates abstract or tangible images with volume.

The relationship between these same volumes (the walls, the stairs, the various partitions and the different elements in the house) and the space, create, through the structures changing façade and the dynamism of the blinds, changing compositions, sometimes controlled and sometimes random with a new and different experience being created each time for the user and those living in the home.

Above: site plan - click for larger image

Design: Pitsou Kedem
Design team architects: Pitsou Kedem, Irene Goldberg, Raz Melmaed
Project: Private home
Plot size: 1500 square meters. Built-up area: 600 square meters

 Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: section

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by Pitsou Kedem appeared first on Dezeen.

Swiss designers Camenzind Evolution completed the project in collaboration with Israeli studios Studio Yaron Tal and Setter Architects.

The offices occupy seven floors of the Electra Tower, one of the tallest skyscrapers in the Israeli city, and were designed as a series of informal workspaces intended to encourage communication and collaboration.

Every area is themed, but each one is based on a scene found somewhere in Israel. Some of the corridors appear as narrow cobbled streets, complete with arched windows and flower boxes, while the reception area is an undulating timber landscape reminiscent of the public spaces at Tel Aviv's port.

Fake grass covers the floor and seating in one room. Another contains surfboards that reference the city's growing surfer culture.

"Each floor was designed with a different aspect of the local identity in mind, illustrating the diversity of Israel as a country and nation," say the designers.

Other unusual spaces include a meeting area surrounded by climbing plants, rooms resembling converted warehouses and space modelled on a desert landscape.

One floor is assigned as a Google Campus, a shared workplace for startup technology companies modelled on one that opened last year in London.

Google frequently works with designers to develop wacky concepts for its offices and the latest London headquarters includes Union Jack flags and vegetable allotments. The internet company also recently revealed images of its data centres, which feature primary-coloured pipework and cooling rooms that glow green. See more stories about Google.

Other offices designed for well-known technology firms include a campus for Adobe in Utah and offices for Microsoft in Vienna, which also include a slide. See more stories about technology companies or see more stories about buildings with slides.

Photography is by Itay Sikolski.

Here's some more information from Camenzind Evolution:

Amazingly inspiring new work environment for Google in Tel Aviv

At the end of December 2012, Google Israel has opened its spectacular new 8’000 m2 offices in Tel Aviv for their ever growing teams of engineers, sales and marketing.

Designed by Swiss Design Team Camenzind Evolution, in collaboration with Israeli Design Teams Setter Architects and Studio Yaron Tal, the new Google office now occupies 8 floors in the prestigious Electra Tower in Central Tel Aviv, with breath taking views across the whole city and the sea.

It is a new milestone for Google in the development of innovative work environments: nearly 50% of all areas have been allocated to create communication landscapes, giving countless opportunities to employees to collaborate and communicate with other Googler’s in a diverse environment that will serve all different requirements and needs.

There is clear separation between the employees traditional desk based work environment and those communication areas, granting privacy and focus when required for desk based individual working and spaces for collaboration and sharing ideas.

Each floor was designed with a different aspect of the local identity in mind, illustrating the diversity of Israel as a country and nation. Each of the themes were selected by a local group of Googlers, who also assisted in the interpretation of those chosen ideas.

Being in Israel, for lunch the Googlers can choose from three amazing restaurants, non-kosher, kosher dairy and kosher meat, each of the restaurants designed to it’s own style and theme.

Only 7 of the 8 rented floors in Electra Tower are actually occupied by Google. The remaining floor gives space to a new ‘Campus’, which was also opened in December by the Israeli Prime Minister. The ‘Campus Tel Aviv’, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, is a new hub for entrepreneurs and developers, providing a base for start-up companies, and is only the second Google ‘Campus’ worldwide.

Sustainability played a vital role to Google in the development of their new Tel Aviv offices and the project is currently awaiting LEED ‘Platinum’ certification, the first of its category in Israel.

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Camenzind Evolution appeared first on Dezeen.

"A new building almost 'not present' from the outside is generated," Paola Liani and Itai Paritzki told Dezeen. "We tried to reinvent what is not present in this particular context and zone of the city - creating an intimate, rich, deep space overlooking a small garden."

The constrained site prevented the architects from giving the building many windows, so they added a long narrow skylight across the width of the roof to bring light down into both the ground and first floors.

A first floor corridor lines up with this skylight and features a gridded metal floor that lets light filter through to the open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area below.

The metal floor also allows residents on the ground floor to see others coming in and out of bedrooms on the level above.

A staircase with cantilevered iron treads connects the two floors and climbs up the side of one of two exposed brick walls. "We invested in this material because it moves the walls and the light, in a codified, almost historical way," said the architects.

More gridded metal is mounted into rectangular frames to act as a semi-transparent screen for the staircase, taking the place of a balustrade.

Paola Liani and Itai Paritzki founded their studio in 2001 and have also designed a house beside the face of a cliff and an apartment with a PVC ceiling.

See more architecture in Israel »

Photography is by Amit Geron.

Here's some more information from the architects:

ZBL House | Paritzki & Liani Architects

The house is inserted in a series of row houses, not far from the university area in Tel Aviv. It is a pedestrian oasis composed of attached houses, only one story high, and filled with green areas. The building restrictions for that specific zone permit utmost a height of 4.5 m for the façade and 6.5 m for the roof top.

The idea of this residential volume situated between two walls and two strips of green is to design the space with the natural light, excluding any full-height subdivision or typological hierarchy; only by inserting two voids that trace the movements of the inhabitants.

Two shifted rectangular cutouts of light: the first, located in the center of the volume directs the light from the roof level to the ground level, which is lifted 90 cm above the pathway (kitchen, dining, living area). The second, located on the external border between the house, the pool and the garden, consents the creation of a second naturally illuminated court, on underground level.

Once entering the house, one perceives the visual depth between the different levels and micro gardens of Sambucus on ground floor.

The suspended passage (bridge) that leads to the night area on the first floor is a diaphragm made of metal net grid only 2 cm thick that assumes the value of a lightweight veil that refines the zenithal light while extending the silhouettes of who walks through it, "in order to see nothing but the sky".

Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Total site area: 198 m2
Total floor area: 300 m²
Number of stories: 3
Status: Completed, 2012

Above: ground floor plan - click above for larger image and key

Above: first floor plan - click above for larger image and key

Above: long section

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Paritzki & Liani Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Rooms are shared between two matching concrete blocks at this house in Israel by architects Shilo Benaroya.

A corridor and stairwell joins the two halves of the Ben Ami House together and a small patio slots into the space between.

The architects explain how this division satisfies the "simple need for privacy" in the two-storey family house and have separated bedrooms between the two blocks.

The kitchen is located at the back of the house and opens out onto a second terrace.

The facade of the house displays two tones of grey, where some parts of the concrete have been coated in plaster and others are left exposed.

Other Israeli houses we've featured include one that is entirely white and one that is concealed behind a house-shaped brick wall.

See more projects in Israel »

Photography is by Friederike Von Rauch.

Here's some text from the architects:

Ben Ami House

We started the project with the simple need of the family for privacy, hence the architectural model composed of two boxes that responds to the organization of the program; one box contains kitchen and living areas on the ground floor, private bedroom with an open terrace on the first floor, while second box contains private bedrooms and service areas on both floors.

A patio on the ground floor, situated between the two boxes, constitutes the main entrance volume to move through the courtyard, staircase and corridor into the house and also between the boxes.

The house feels large due to its clear circulation and continuous spaces.

With the aim of providing complete flexibility of arrangement in the interior, two parallel structural exposed concrete walls have been created at the north/south walls, while the other east/west walls are composed as infield of plaster finish and the window strips.

The two-boxes-house is as rational in arrangement as in construction, a reflection of the compactness of the lot and of the key desire for clarity in program, structure and materiality of the house.

Ground floor plan

Construction Engineer: Vera Neustein
Interior Design: Shilo Benaroya architecture office

First floor plan

Concrete floor: Ran Abengan
Steel work: Yarden Nachmias
Air conditioning: Avi Zerah
Kitchen and Furniture wood work: Yossi Belishevski
Kitchen and Wood: Yossi Belishevski
Stainless steel: Nirosta Yussin

Long section - click above for larger image

Cross section - click above for larger image

Side elevation

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by Shilo Benaroya appeared first on Dezeen.