Ecology First

The owners of this residence wanted it to be harmonious with the elements, saving water and electricity.

By GLORIA DEUTSCH
The Lorch home521 (photo credit: uriel messa)
The Lorch home521
(photo credit: uriel messa)
With a Matisse cutout reproduced in the pool, a system of collecting rainwater for domestic use, recycled shower water for the garden, and solar lighting, you could say this is an unusual house.
The owners, Yoav and Janna Lorch, wanted a home that was comfortable, aesthetic and ecologically sound in every way.
“We wanted a warm look, casual and unsophisticated,” they say. “There is no expensive furniture in this house.” With kilim rugs on the simple tiled floor, drum sets in the middle of the living room, and pine-cones as decoration, opulence is out, but ecological awareness is definitely in.
The house was built to take into account sunlight and how it varies at different times of the day and year; wind patterns and how they affect living; and an urgent need to save and recycle water in every way possible.
Yoav, a writer with two start-up companies and creator of the icon-based Zanglo language, and Janna, his Finnish-born artist wife, decided to move from their Ramat Hasharon home about eight years ago. They discovered a neighborhood next door to the upscale town in which they lived but where they could build for a fraction of the price.
“We found Neveh Yisrael by chance and fell in love with it,” they say. “It’s a very quiet neighborhood, once the home of North African immigrants who arrived here in the early ’50s, and some of the original small houses remain.”
They liked the fact that it has two small neighborhood groceries and seven synagogues to provide for the various original inhabitants – Egyptian, Libyan and Moroccan Jews hurriedly settled here when they first immigrated. They love the way the main roads connect by a series of footpaths and the fact that it is so green and quiet here, yet minutes from the highway to Tel Aviv.
The first thing they did, even before finalizing the purchase of the dunam (0.1 hectare) of land, was to consult with an ecological adviser.
“Anyone can do this,” explains Yoav. “You can go to the meteorological service and they provide data on the area.”
More than anything, they wanted the house, which would be home for them and their three daughters, built to be harmonious with the elements from the start, rather than built first and having to battle the elements later, as Yoav explained. To this end, they acquired an anemometer (a wind-measuring instrument), and they came frequently to check the activity of the wind, especially speed and direction in the area at different times and seasons.
“For good quality of life, a breeze flowing through the house is an important factor,” says Yoav. “In terms of cooling, I would say we save on air-conditioning perhaps a month at the beginning of the summer and a month at the end.”
JANNA BUILT a model of the house and simulated the kind of sunlight that would enter on any day of the year at different times of the day. That way they knew where to put windows to maximize light but keep out the sun at its strongest, or, as they put it, when the sun is violent.
In the main living area, a long, angled window under the ceiling allows for a low winter sun to flood the room, creating a pleasant light.
But in the heat of summer, it is kept out by the carefully measured angle and by remote-control blinds if necessary. “We like the idea of being able to sit in the lounge and look up at the sky and watch the changing clouds,” they say. They can also open the window when necessary to remove the layers of hot air that accumulate.
The main living and sleeping quarters are all on the second floor.
“We wanted good air flow and the view from the windows and patios, so we gave up the natural connection to the garden,” they say. “We lost something in that we need to go downstairs to access the garden – but we don’t feel locked in, and seeing the sunset from our living room is a great compensation.”
On the way up, we note the blue-painted banisters and the network of tied string that keeps children from falling through. On the staircase is an amusing sculpture of a man reading a newspaper, which was once in an office exhibition.
The red Formica kitchen is where the filtered rain water is stored and drunk. Over the work counter is a solar tube, a pipe from the ceiling that provides free light.
The bedrooms look out over the garden and pool. Wherever possible, they used old recycled doors, painted red, and the bathroom is tiled in home-done mosaic. “You can’t imagine how pleasant it is to shower and look out at nature,” says Yoav, indicating the bathroom with its ceiling-to-floor window directly over the pool. Outside the bedroom is an unusual clothes peg.
“In Finland, you don’t go to IKEA, you just take a branch of juniper and hang it on the wall,” says Janna with a smile.
For the pool, they decided on something special. In addition to wanting one that was deep enough to swim seriously, they also felt a person should be able to lose him- or herself in a pool. The surface had to be very smooth so the painter – a man who normally paints ships – could do the work from the scanned photo. Besides Icarus floating at the bottom, the railings above the pool have crushed glass bottles incorporated into the wrought iron.
The cactus garden catches sun, but the giant pecan that has been there for over half a century provides shade for both floors of the house. Who would have dreamed 60 years ago that this plot of land with its modern house could be a repository for so many revolutionary ideas?