I think it's time, Caroline, to go and see how the other half live.
Talk about "welcome to my humble abode." Cor!
That is a whole lot of house!
He's Pierce Taylor, an award-winning architect.
I mean the depth of this wall, it's four-foot thick.
After you, my Lord.
And she's Caroline Quentin.
Acclaimed actress and passionate property developer.
This house has the perfect ratio of bedrooms to swimming pools.
We've been given the keys to some of the most incredible houses
in the world.
If we were left alone here for any amount of time I have a feeling...
We would ruin this house.
To discover the design innovation, passion,
and endurance needed to transform architectural vision into an
extraordinary home.
Look! I'm dumbstruck!
We're travelling the globe...
Meeting architects and owners to explore how their daring homes
respond uniquely to local landscape, climate, and culture.
I think this is probably the greatest house I've ever been in.
Whether it's battling the elements to construct a dream home
on dramatic Scandinavian terrain...
The architect was nervous that things would go wrong.
He couldn't bear to look at it.
Pushing the boundaries of European experimentation...
I think that's it.I think it is!
When I looked at the proposal, at the beginning I was almost shocked.
Celebrating craftsmanship and beauty in Asia...
We've likened this house to dripping chocolate sauce
over vanilla ice cream.
Or going all-out for glamour in America.
We just do what you do best is to create a masterpiece.
(AMERICAN ACCENT)Pierce! Is this too Miami?
This time, we're in the Middle East.
Israel. Here we are!
It's exciting to be in such an ancient culture, isn't it?
It is.Because to be going to visit places that...
I mean, you know, since a little girl, at school, you know,
you've heard talk of Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee
and all those places they've been
kind of in one's consciousness forever.
We've come to see the work of some of Israel's most interesting
contemporary architects who often take inspiration
from the country's rich cultural and historical traditions,
creating buildings that also have to deal with an extreme climate.
From a stunning city house carved out of a hillside...
This is clearly what it's all about.
It's all about the rock. It's all about the rock.
To luxury living by the Mediterranean.
This is one seriously glamorous boudoir.
We're on a kind of architectural pilgrimage...
Look at the light, Piers!
It's magical the way it's bouncing off the floor.
..as we hit the road seeking extraordinary homes
in the Holy Land.
I want you, Piers Taylor, to give me a sermon on architecture.
Convert me.
We're starting our journey just north of Tel Aviv
in Herzliya Pituach.
# Let the sun shine! #
This is one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Israel,
renowned for boutique hotels, restaurants, embassies,
and jaw-dropping houses.
It's a millionaires' playground by the Mediterranean.
We're back on the beach.
Good thing I've got my mankini with me, I can have a dip.
God, that's a thought.
Yours?The mental image of you in a mankini.
These trees are insane. They're beautiful.
When a British businessman and his Israeli wife wanted to build
their dream family home,
they searched for a plot in this exclusive neighbourhood.
They said it's hard to see from the road,
they told us to look for a long, white wall.
I think this is it, P.
It's enormous.
It's huge, isn't it?
I mean, it's like a great big liner, isn't it?
It is.Oh, gosh, it's wonderful.
# I put a spell on you...#
It's a surprise to find this huge,
intriguing looking house tucked away in a suburban plot.
Beyond the giant white facade with its sculpted screens
is a sleek and spacious family home designed to embrace the outdoors.
# You better stop the things you do
# I ain't lyin'. #
Shall we have a look inside? Just help ourselves?
Yeah.The gate's open.
This is like a gangplank onto a 1930s liner.
It is, isn't it? And it's so lush, it's so verdant.
Look at the planting.
It's quite tropical, isn't it?
Ossie, who is the owner of this house, has invited us in.
Hello!
Welcome!
Hello!Lovely to meet you!
I'm Caroline, this is Piers. Don't be so ridiculous.
Lovely to meet you.
Thank you very much for letting us in.
Thank you so much.
Whew! It's already really, extraordinarily beautiful.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
It's immediately obvious that no expense has been spared
in this palatial family home.
Ossie and her husband, Steve, have created generous living spaces
which are warm and welcoming.
Throughout the ground floor,
choreographed lights and reflective pools creates a calm connection
with the outside world.
Let me show you the area that we actually live.
We actually spend most of our time here outside because it's a hot
country. Nine months a year, we're outside.
I can't help myself. I'm going to slip off and explore,
if that's OK? Enjoy yourself. Good, you slip off, P.
So how many are you here?
So I came with my three kids and my husband came with his three kids.
Right.Thank God they really get on together.
We all live here with friends and families and everyone come in
and out whenever they want.
It's really like a home.
I think it's great that in a house which is, really, I mean,
quite phenomenal that it's a home as well, it's a place you feel
you can use, the teenagers can come and live, and be.
Yes, there's no rules in the house, as long as everyone is nice
to each other and happy, we don't really have rules.
So then you want everyone to enjoy it.
If you don't mind, I will.
I shall thoroughly immerse myself in your home, if that's OK?
Of course. Would you like cup of coffee?
Thank you, I'd love that.
This is a huge house with 800 square metres of floor space
and is set over three levels.
In the basement there are three large en-suite bedrooms,
a cinema, and a bar area.
Upstairs, there's a main bedroom, a dressing room,
and three further bedrooms.
The ground floor is open-plan with a generous kitchen,
a dining room and two sitting areas which all open onto the garden.
P? Hello.She's gone to make me a cup of coffee,
but she was just telling me how they live, pretty much,
almost entirely outside because the climate is so good.
She says all of this opens up.
It does. I mean, it's hard to know where the inside ends
and the outside begins. But all of these pull back.
And this does change the character of the house completely, doesn't it?
Entirely. I mean you open up the side
and suddenly you're in a completely different space.
And the way you feel about it changes completely.
It does. I mean, particularly here where this goes from being
a rather large hall into being part of the garden.
I'll give you a hand. It's getting heavier.It is.
This is absolutely glorious, what happens to this.
I mean, that completely alters this entire space.
It's really weird to actually think about it, you come in,
and in a way if you walked in and this was open it would be
like being in a house that's made out of one wall.That's right. Yeah.
The far wall is actually the other side of the house.
That's right. That's how I think it's been designed.
The boundary wall is the outside wall.
And everything in it is just movable screen or furniture.
Talk about using your plot.
Now, there are no bedrooms here, so I think we probably have to head...
Down?Or up? Or both?Or both?
Pretty staircase.
Lovely staircase. I mean, lovely the way the light is brought through all
this delicate structure, and bounced around.
I feel like it's almost some sort of heavenly harp.
It's like a stairway to heaven.
Guide you up to the pearly gates.
Very nice.Where are you going down, down?
Down into the dark, I think.
I'm going to go exploring up here.
OK. See you in a minute.
They are beautifully made, these stairs.
Each one of these pieces of steel is cantilevered out from the stone.
And then the stainless steel wires pass through,
not supporting just passing through.
To stop you falling out. Beautiful.
Wow, it's so different downstairs.
And it's so dark.
So textured.
The moonscape wall changes the tone from the airy upper floors
and draws you in.
The subdued lighting and dark furnishings are in stark contrast,
to the rest of the house.
This is the sort of room that's most blokes would fantasize about.
A bar.
And a huge screen to watch football.
While Piers is trying to find a remote,
I'm seeing what the top floor has to offer.
I'm guessing this is the master bedroom.
This is one seriously glamorous boudoir.
Quite a smart bathroom as well. Fantastic walls.
Beautiful, beautiful stone walls.
Biggest shower head in Israel, possibly the world.
Massive bath.
Lady in a hurry.
Ossie and Steve are living the dream, and I found mine
next to the master bedroom.
Look at these, what amazing shoes!
Yeah, incredible.
Right. Where's that cup of tea Ossie promised me?
While Caroline puts her feet up, I'm back in my work boots.
I want to ask the architect, Pitsou Kedem, how they began this project.
When you design private houses, it's all about drawing a portrait
of your client and I think the first thing that really distinguishes
this house and the others is the client, they are really different.
Steve lives in London and when I ask him what you're doing for living,
he said, "I'm a sitter, I like to sit.
"Sometimes I like to sit next to the swimming pool.
"Sometimes I like to sit next to my fireplace."
He's a sitter, OK, so that's...
..in a way Ossie is the dynamic shapes and the movement
in the house. And Steve is the all those excellent areas to sit
around the swimming pool, and next to the fire, and the living room.
So it's kind of drawing a portrait of different persons.
So Steve asks you for places to sit. Yes.What did Ossie ask you for?
Well, Ossie, she's not really a type of asking things,
she said, you know, "Let's have fun."
And then she brought all the colour.
I mean in a way saying that she brought the courage to the house.
I'd drive them all mad.
I drive Peter mad, Steve mad, I want it my way,
and I want to do things that have personality, that have meaning.
This wall, in particular, I adore.
Yes, so, while we were building the house,
I didn't want everything to be just white, I wanted to get
a bit of a warm feeling and I really, really love
natural stone and texture.
I like when you go, you can touch the walls.
Just give a bit of more interesting way for the house.
Ossie's attention to detail has created a lavish finish.
The use of rich texture and vibrant materials
are not the stark minimalist language you'd expect
within a modernist shell.
But here, the aesthetic brings life and warmth to the interiors.
Great architecture often looks effortless,
but creating a home like this is never easy.
It took four years to design and build.
What do you think the biggest challenge for you was here?
Well, I think the biggest challenge was how can we mix
between the garden and the house?
How can we really ignore the boundary between interior and
exterior, and I think, for me, we started to design
from the edge of the plot itself.
It's almost like the second floor is floating in the air,
and those windows with the inner column, they don't really exist.
You can open the windows,
then you can really feel that you live in and outside together.
And also because you've taken water inside.Yeah.
There's surprisingly little obvious structure supporting the weight
of the floors above and the design team have worked hard
to keep the structure to an absolute minimum.
There's a real integration of architecture and engineering
in this house.
There are columns sunk into extra deep foundations
which then support a network of beams which are cleverly hidden
in the floors and interior walls.
A lot of effort has gone into making J House feel light and airy.
The atmosphere is really kind of vacation house.
Just wake up for vacation every day.
Oh, yeah, this is a lovely spot.
This is the place when you want to chill out, relax,
which we come here, and I'll show you the right way of doing it.
Yeah.So when you sit down... Yeah...you put your coffee away.
OK. Your legs up.Yes.
Just close your eyes for two seconds.
OK.Listen to the water and the birds.
Ossie, it's fantastic.
When I open my eyes, I think I've got one of the best views
in the whole house.
I've got the foliage of the tree, and the bright blue of the sky,
and then that splash of evening sunlight on the wall,
with the dancing shadows of the leaves.
It's a wonderful place to sit, isn't it?
Yeah. It's definitely my favourite part, it's so casual, easy,
makes you relax and open your heart.
So, this is where all the conversations
with the kids happen, decisions of the house
are always happening here.
It's a house with everything, really, isn't it?
And it looks after the people you love.
Yeah, I think the house somehow like cuddling.
I feel like the house is cuddling
everything that happens in this family.
I love it, the cuddling house. I love it!
It wraps its arms around you.
Yeah!I'm never getting up from here.
Me neither. I told you to bring a bottle of wine here.
If I had a glass of wine, I probably would never leave.
It's just heaven.
After four years of meticulous planning, building,
and plenty of passion, Ossie and Steve finally have the house
they dreamed of. Now they can sit back and enjoy it.
# At last
# My love has come along. #
Although you could look at this house, and judge it as a, sort of,
Mediterranean European house,
we are actually right on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean,
it feels different, we're between two cultures, aren't we?
There is a real sense of two cultures coming together.
I mean, there's the culture of European modernism,
big white plains, and masonry held up on columns,
but the way it sits in this garden,
with this water, these trees, this planting, the way it feels,
the lushness of all of that, is really Middle Eastern.
It's very fitting, really,
because Ossie and Steve are a marriage of two cultures,
and I think the house reflects that
and they have brought together their two families,
and I think this place is part of their story,
their wonderfully generous and loving story.
It's going to be hard to leave, but I'm afraid we have to.
We do.
# I found a dream that I could speak to. #
Back to the motel? Back to the motel.
# For you are mine
# At last.#
To visit our next home,
we're leaving the salubrious suburbs behind and heading into the heart
of the Holy Land.
This landscape's suddenly become really biblical, have you noticed?
Yeah.This is what I remember from, sort of, Sunday school,
these drawings of these arid hilltops.
I'm really getting a sense of the ancient land now.
We're bound for the rural north,
where the earliest stone houses in the world have been discovered.
Surrounded by such history, you can't help but ask
life's most enduring questions.
Got any sweets, anything cheap?
I haven't got anything... Full of E numbers and colouring.
I like a green sweet.No-one likes green sweets, I'm telling you now,
no-one likes green sweets. No, I like green sweets.
You wonder why would they ever put a green sweet in a packet?Perfect.
Our next architectural confection is built high on the slopes
of the Jordan Rift Valley, and gazes down on the Sacred Sea of Galilee.
We're going down now, eh?
The 'sea' is actually the largest freshwater lake in Israel,
and it's these azure views that inspired a local family
to snap up a building plot on the outskirts
of their agricultural village,
where we've had to resort to Shanks' pony.
I like this piece of land, but it's quite rocky.
It is a beautiful piece of land, beautiful stone,
actually, this, though.
Piers, Piers, I didn't expect to see horses here.
Well, I guess this is common land, isn't it?
And people would have kept horses here historically
for thousands of years, I guess. And what a beauty.
What a beauty!
Piers...
There it is! And, wow, look!
I mean, look at the colour of it,
compared to the colour of this limestone.
I mean, it's perfect. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
I mean, if you got a colour chart, you couldn't match it
more beautifully. No.It's so subtle, and so of its place.
And speaks of land and earth.
Yeah.And made out of masonry, I mean, it's perfect.
This is a house that truly inhabits the landscape.
There's something enigmatic about it,
as if it's waiting for you to peel back those shutters
to reveal what's inside.
Time to go in.Very much so.
But what's inside?
Secret box.
It feels almost religious, this, like a chapel, like a cloister.
Yes! Look at the light, Piers, it's magical,
the way it's bouncing off the floor.
This house is beautifully crafted and understated.
There is real simplicity here.
The subtle use of colours and materials integrate the house
into its pastoral surroundings, while its passive design
keeps it cool, even in the 40-degree summer sun.
Do you want a cup of tea? I'd love a cup of tea.
Are you happy with any old tea?
English tea is fine.
Those screens just work absolutely brilliantly.
It just makes this space a really wonderful place to be.
This is a really ancient way of making buildings
in this part of the world, where you use passive mechanisms,
so these screens that filter the light, filter the heat,
and make a beautiful, subtly lit, cool interior.
Shall we grab a pew... Thank you...for the brew.
Before we have a snoop around,
I want to soak up the atmosphere of this home.
Shall we open this up a bit more?Yeah.
You know, it's a pretty good space to be in.
You've got the sun, you've got shade...
Piers Taylor standing, talking to you about architecture.
With the Sea of Galilee behind him.
What could be better?Nothing.
It's a religious experience.
We are very close to where Jesus preached one of his greatest sermons
to the masses. I want you, Piers Taylor,
to give me a sermon on architecture.
Convert me.Well, my top point would be, in this part of the world,
deal with heat, light and air, in the most economical possible way.
And this house does it beautifully.
I mean, it does it so simply, no complexity,
just correct orientation,
correct, simple, passive means of filtering heat, and light, and wind,
and, look, the whole house benefits from this simple move,
and you're benefiting from it now.
I'm converted, and, oh, so comfortable.
This entrance veranda is a key aspect of the house.
It acts as a breezeway, a space between the shutters and the glass,
which cools the air before it enters inside.
This breezeway opens up to a large open-plan kitchen-diner living room,
an en-suite guest room, and a utility.
Upstairs, there is a main bedroom, two bedrooms for the children,
and a comfortable family sitting area,
which leads on to a generous balcony.
Like the ground floor, upstairs is bathed in gentle light.
The unassuming rooms never distract from the beauty of the landscape.
The house is permeated with fresh air drifting up from the sea.
This gentle, simple home is rooted in its environment.
The couple who live here have a young family,
and I think this is just the most charming little girl's bedroom.
It's really simple, really quiet.
And it also has...
..its own miniature version, of all the other shutters in the house.
Every bedroom has a window out on this world, and in this climate,
the south-facing ones in particular benefit
from an indigenous feature to help them keep cool.
The idea of balcony has been lost in contemporary architecture,
because nowadays we deal with huge screens of glass
that slide and move away, but there's something about
the proportion of an opening like this that make sense
in this climate. The heat is usually so extreme, the light is so extreme,
that a small opening, with a pair of doors that you can shut,
a between space that keeps the heat out, and then a screen
that deals with light.
It's timeless and perfect.
# Here comes the sun, do, do, do, do
# Here comes the sun, and I say...#
One of the things I really love about these shutters,
is that they're almost industrial, or rural,
they're like they're part of this, sort of, countryside, really,
because they could easily be on a cow barn, or on a cattle shed.
There's nothing remotely pretentious about them,
they just do their job...
..in a really simple and beautiful way.
This lovely house was designed by husband and wife,
acclaimed architects Galit and Yaron Golany.
What starting point did you have, I mean, because it does have the most,
I mean, probably one of the most extraordinary views in the world,
actually? Was that quite a daunting thing for an architect?
Erm, more than that, it was a privilege.
It just dictated all the design,
the fact that we wanted to open to the south and east,
to really engage with this ancient landscape.
We had to raise the house a little bit in order
to see the Sea of Galilee, so very early in the design
we came here with the owner and we climbed the ladder...
And just determined what is the minimum raise...
Oh, OK,.....to start and view the Sea of Galilee.
So you built it, in a way, as low as you could.
Yes.But still maintain a clear view to the Sea of Galilee.
To guarantee the sweeping views,
the house had to face south, directly into the searing sun,
which in turn pushed Galit and Yaron to create a distinctive look,
with balconies, breezeways and, of course, the shutters.
Were there any challenges with the build,
anything that you came up against that was difficult to deal with?
Yes, the budget.
THEY LAUGH
If you have less money, you must work harder.
I think that's right.
I do, and I think with your house here that's what we sense.
The effort, and the thought that's gone into those details,
but for us as visitors to the house that's one of the magical things
about the house, I think. Thank you.Thank you.
In an age of environmental awareness,
there's a tendency to think
that you need hi-tech methods to deal with climate,
particularly in a place like this, which gets baking hot.
It's 40-odd degrees here for much of the year.
The question is how do you make usable living spaces
when you've got that kind of climate, and what you do,
is what this house has done.
You take the least important bits, which are the utility, and so on,
and you put them in the south-west corner
because that's the hottest sun,
and then almost half the depth of the floor plan
is given over to a breezeway that exists through here.
And, effectively, what this breezeway does
is act as a buffer from the heat and moderates the light,
moderates the heat and everything else,
between the outside and the inside.
And what happens is that there is a screen that runs along there
and then the bulk of the heat, the bulk of the harsh light,
are filtered by this screen,
and that then allows this to be a usable shaded space,
and they make it into something of real beauty.
You can see why the owners wanted to build a house here.
But they weren't the first people to think of this place
as a really desirable location.
Out there, they have discovered evidence of human habitation
from as long ago as 14,000 years.
That's right, I guess you could call it the birthplace of architecture,
the birthplace of making buildings and homes
in the way that we understand them today.
And I imagine that 14,000 years ago they were living in, and loving,
their homes in exactly the same way as we do now.
But what's brilliant is they did the same things then that they do now.
They take the stuff of the ground and they make it into poetry.
This property is poetic.
It's a simple, ingenious, extraordinary family home.
For our third house, we've come to the holy city of Jerusalem.
Piers, Piers, Piers, look at the gold, the shining gold
on top of the... Wow. I think it's a monument.
Yeah.Yeah, because there's the garden on the other side.
Yeah, that's...that's the Garden of Gethsemane, surrounding it,
all those cypress trees.
That's actually mind-blowing...
Mind-blowing, mind-blowing, it's like nothing else.
..to see that, isn't it?Yes.
Dating back 6,000 years, Jerusalem is one of the oldest
and most fought-over cities in the world.
Today, it's still a place of pilgrimage, where Muslims,
Jews and Christians come to worship at sites
connected with the very foundation of their faith.
With its distinctive Jerusalem stone buildings,
some dating back thousands of years, this city is like nowhere else.
Look at Jerusalem spread out beneath us.
And what's amazing is to see all the spires, the minarets, the mosques,
on the skyline, all jockeying for position.
I mean, look at the buildings.
I mean, they're all completely different from one another,
all equally beautiful.
Highly decorative, incredibly simple, I mean,
you couldn't get a more diverse range of buildings.
It's interesting for me to see that it is the buildings
that claim the space for the religions.
It's always about the buildings.
It is for you, always about the buildings.
For me it's always about the art, the literature, the theatre
and music.Yeah, there are a few other things.
For you it's about that. And what would you build here,
of all places, in Jerusalem?
Let's go and find out.
Whatever is built here must be made with the characteristic
local limestone. It's a law dating back a hundred years
to protect and preserve the aesthetic of this ancient city.
The owners of our next house found a place to build in one of Jerusalem's
most desirable neighbourhoods, and then bravely gave their architects
carte blanche with the design.
Oh, it's a fork in the road.
The palm trees are nice, aren't they?
Palm trees are always nice in the right places.
This one, I think, that's the modern one.
So yes, it has a textured gate.
Right.
Now, the owners aren't here, so I'm going to do this code.
Oh, you could just do that.
It's beautiful.
# I saw miles and miles of squares,
# Where's the feeling there
# Still nobody cares. #
The architects have built a four-bedroomed family home
that certainly showcases that Jerusalem stone.
The fascinating facade catches the light and throws intriguing shadows,
creating an ever-changing surface, as the sun moves through the sky.
The stone gets more interesting the closer you get.
That's the test of a good building, in a way, the closer you get,
it gets more interesting.
We're in.We are in.
My magic key has brought us into this lovely room.
Wow, it's so glossy.
The furniture, the lights, everything is white,
shiny and glossy.
It really is, it's like walking into some sort of Powell Pressburger
version of heaven, isn't it? It's extraordinary.
The highly polished floors and surfaces contrast perfectly
with the rough, textured exterior, and they also reflect it,
bringing the outside in.
And just when you think the outside can't get any closer...
Look, Piers, this is clearly what it's all about.
It's all about the rock. It's all about the rock.
The architects have left the ancient limestone cliff exposed
as a bold counterpoint to the super-smooth interiors.
This is fantastic, isn't it?
It's great to see the rock face left in its almost virgin state.
I mean that's what they've done, isn't it,
they've seen that, and thought let's not dig it out.
Clearly most people excavate right back.
When land is so valuable in cities that people press buildings right up
against it and use every inch of space,
but here they've left it for a breezeway
and it is really cool here.
It's lovely, it's actually a really lovely place to be, isn't it?
It's really lovely.It's like a private garden space.
It's, sort of, not at all what I expected Jerusalem to have, somehow.
It's much wilder, the rest of the city is quite formal, isn't it?
And this is just, well, it's a bit bonkers, frankly.
It is a bit.I feel quite tempted to...
Every good building has a bit of madness in it.
Is that right? Is that what you architects all say?
That's what I say. I never thought of you as a rock climber,
but, actually, you're pretty good. Do you know, I do actually,
I'm quite interested in rock climbing, not falling, but climbing.
Caroline Quentin, Everest explorer.
Well, what about it?
To construct this four-storey building,
77 tonnes of rock had to be excavated.
The lower basement houses a garage,
above which there is a large games room.
The ground floor of the house sits
1.5 metres from the exposed rock face,
which runs along the living and dining rooms,
leading onto a kitchen.
The first floor meets the rock face sheltering the stone wall below.
Upstairs there are four en-suite bedrooms.
Outside, the entire exterior is clad in 5,000 stone tiles
shaped from the excavated rock.
It's kind of surreal in a way,
because this is so wild here, Caroline.Yeah.
And yet it's like a little David Hockney painting outside, isn't it?
I love that comedy perfection of that citrus tree there, as well.
Just boinging out over the swimming pool against the blue.
Piers, I don't know how to get upstairs. Yes, I do, I've found it.
I wonder what's up here.
And suddenly we are almost outdoors again,
because here in a pot, and only in Israel would you find this,
there is a potted kumquat tree.
It makes fantastic marmalade.
This is a wonderful room.
Because not only have you got the double aspect,
but from this side, I can see a balcony.
And here it is, the real star of the show.
The city of Jerusalem.
What's really clear, standing up here,
is the juxtaposition of this modern stone, these rectangles,
where the light plays so beautifully,
but then when I cast my eyes down there I see the more ancient,
the older Jerusalem stone, which is rougher hewn, hand-cut,
and it's just fantastic that these modern buildings
and the ancient buildings are all made from exactly the same stuff.
Barud House gets its name from the warning calls
shouted before Jerusalem rock is exploded, and it's fascinating,
the way that this building honours this hallowed stone
in all its forms. It's almost as though a sculptor has been at work,
taking the raw material and shaping it.
In architecture, there's always this conversation between form
and material, so shape and space and the material that those spaces
are made from, and typically material is always subservient
to form and space.
So, the thing you remember is never the material.
But this house inverts that and it's the material that I read much more
strongly than anything else.
Having said that, the spaces here are pretty good too.
Working out the dimensions of this house was a mathematical challenge.
The architects designed the building around multiples of the 53x25
centimetres stone blocks, in order that none were cut.
The result is a perfectly resolved geometric puzzle.
The architects behind this almost Rubik's cube of a house
are husband and wife Paritzki and Liani.
So when you were here nine years ago and you walked around,
did you know immediately how you wanted to treat the rock?
Er, yes, the impression that we received when we arrived here
was very strong, because this raw rock was very beautiful
and the presence, it's very important,
especially in the symbolic way for this city,
because for each culture the stone is very, very important issue
and we wanted to keep it as it was.
It's the strong presence, and the heart, and the core of the house.
The big idea about the rock face, keeping it,
and then using the stone with a deep relief,
how did you present that to your client?
In the beginning, we put five stone samples
and, actually, they really gave us carte blanche.
They were really open and there was also another thing, related to
relations of the client that, for us, was also some kind of lesson,
because the owners are religious,
so there was a nice dialogue with us that we don't know as many of the
rules, for example that we couldn't use paintings,
and that's why we say that the main painting of the house
will be really this... Pattern. This pattern, or this rock.
That's incredibly interesting.
I mean, they have no art, is that right?
None. No, they're not allowed to. Not allowed.
So the building in a way had to take the place of artwork.
You know, in a way you are right, because it's performing
a kind of intriguing changing during the seasons and the hours,
so it's like an installation, in a way.
This impressive facade might be an architect's flight of fancy,
but this is a practical family home.
A generous courtyard with a pool favours outdoor living.
And inside, the use of glass for the walls creates a sense of space
which remains cool, thanks to that rocky breezeway.
Upstairs the teenagers' bedrooms can be accessed separately,
allowing them independence and their parents some peace and quiet.
This architect has done something deceptively clever,
because the main living space sits perched on this rock,
and it's got a space below it where another level sits,
and then, above it, there is all of the bedrooms.
What this architect has done is to take the top floor
and bridge over covering this space that I'm sitting in,
and that means that by pulling these floors away from the rock face,
what you get is all of the light comes flooding in
and hits this space that I'm sitting in now and brings all of this light
into these rooms. And similarly, because it's so baking hot here,
what all of these rooms can do is cross-vent all of the time
and every bit of this house has access to a very intimate
relationship with this rock face, and the other side,
they have this incredible panoramic view of Jerusalem.
So you always have both, and not either or,
and that's really special.
Jerusalem doesn't have a cohesiveness that allows you
to read it at first glance.
It's always been groups of people jostling in and making it their
own, and making a stake on it.
Well, I think what does make it cohesive is this use
of the Jerusalem rock, and I think that's one of the most spellbinding
things about the place, and, of course,
it is true of this house as well.
It's the rock that gives it its personality and makes it so special.
For our final home we've made our way to the Arab village of Musmus,
close to the occupied West Bank.
It's very, very different from the rest of Israel, isn't it,
where we've been?In my mind I thought maybe
it would have some sort of European references,
but it doesn't feel like that to me.
It's quite a surprise.If you close your eyes and open them,
where would you think you were?
Musmus.
We've been told the house we're looking for sits on top of a hill,
but around here they seem more like mountains.
I don't know if it's going to get up here, Caroline.
I don't feel very safe. Oh!
Oh!Have you got a hill start?
Piers!Oh!
I'm really struggling to get up here!
Oh. I feel...I think I might be about to see my breakfast again.
The owner of this house must have a cast-iron stomach...
Hang on, hang on. Oh, there. Turning, yeah.
..as well as cast-iron gates. Well done.
This is quite glamorous.
Isn't it? This is just beautiful.
Look at the planting, look at the cypresses.
Shall we stop here?
The air is different up here.
It's like we're in a completely different land.
These plants are great, aren't they? Smell good.
It's absolutely wonderful.
Commanding its hilltop position is this spellbinding property.
The challenge here was to revamp the family's pre-existing home,
by combining modernism and Islamic architecture.
Creating three beautiful gardens,
the owner wanted the entire space to celebrate his Arabic heritage
in a modern setting.
He's kindly agreed to show us round.
Adnan. Hello. Caroline, lovely to meet you.
Nice to meet you. This is Piers. Hi, great to meet you.
Hi.We've loved walking in through your beautiful gardens.
You're welcome.These screens are fantastic,
this light coming through is really interesting, beautiful.
Can I have a look and see what's behind?Yeah, please, OK.
Come on.I'd like to look at the gardens, can I do that?
Of course. Will you take me?Yeah. Thank you very much.Please.
This screen is so evocative of this part of the world.
In Islamic culture the lattice screen is a really big deal,
and, in a way, the lattice screen within a projecting bay
is part of the vocabulary of Islamic architecture.
In the Middle East, these mashrabiya screens
have been used for centuries.
The architects could have chosen a traditional Islamic design,
but they bought this one bang up-to-date
with an abstract depiction of the pomegranate.
An auspicious fruit in Islamic culture,
it's known as the apple of paradise and is a symbol of fertility
and beauty. This is such a clever way of controlling the environment
because, of course, this filters the light,
it actually creates a ventilation path for the house,
but it shelters the house from this burning heat.
I'm loving what I see so far.
The architects inherited a fairly traditional Arabic four-bedroomed
family home.
Their brief was to make sense of the buildings that had no real coherence
and create a large Arabic entranceway
with a sitting area above, and to add more living space,
a family room in the east wing, and a formal dining area
in the west wing.
A large drawing room was created from two small sitting rooms,
leading onto a new outdoor terrace.
Two new gardens with distinctive atmospheres were created
next to the house, with a third large terraced garden
making the most of the steep approach.
Two different worlds have been brought together by the architects.
An Islamic world steeped in tradition,
and the 21st century sense of modernity.
This is a liwan.
This is the type of space that's been used in Islamic and Persian
architecture for about 2,000 years,
and the purpose is, of course, to bring people in,
to greet them, to display your wealth,
but it has a really important role in cooling the rest of the building,
because all the air washes off it and cools the whole space.
But there is something in this space
that you wouldn't normally find in a liwan.
This is not quite the elephant in the room,
but certainly something I can't ignore.
It's a really quite sculptural staircase,
and I'm in a space that in many ways could be 2,000 years old,
but this very much anchors it in the 21st century.
The simplicity of the new white additions,
combined with the lush mashrabiya screens to create a spacious
and almost magical atmosphere.
Adnan's family have had a home here for longer than anyone can remember.
His ancestors once grew olives and grazed sheep on this hillside.
He wanted to maintain this family connection with the land by creating
beautiful outdoor living spaces.
Is this an Arabic garden?Yes, yes, my grandfather lived here
and you see the stones, we take from his house.
Really? These stones? Yes, these stones.
His house, yes, and they made it, like, form the gardens.
May I go into this garden? Yeah, OK. When you come through this archway,
it's very moving, actually.
You're almost moving through part of your grandfather's house.Yes, yes.
Now I built it and make an innovation, you know, and live here.
It's my childhood, it's very sweet.
The architect has created an interpretation
of an Islamic paradise garden.
Flowing water representing life.
Shady planting and seating. It's a place for rest and reflection.
A reminder of the paradise that awaits believers in heaven.
The second garden is a more practical affair,
a traditional terraced Arabic bustan
and agricultural garden filled with fruit trees.
It's absolutely beautiful.
Yeah, thank you.
And grapefruit. Yeah.Can I pick one? Yeah, I can pick it.
Can you? Thank you very much. You've got a little more height.
It's beautiful.Yes.
And the smell of these things, does it take you back to your childhood,
to when you were here with your...
Yes, yes. Does it?I walk here, I go back with my childhood.
A lot of things, you know.
You could have come and built a house here, a big, white house,
but you decided to build a modern house, but with, I don't know,
old traditional things?Yes, I think, I think to build
a modern house, and my friend is an architect.
I call him and I ask him if he can make a house
who is mix the traditional of my culture with the modern life.
And he say - "Good idea."
And we meet and we start to talk about this, and we make it.
We make a good house with memories with the past life, my life,
my childhood, and with the modern life.
The architects, Ron Fleisher and Golan Hadari,
had to get up to speed on Islamic culture
in order to work convincingly on Adnan's house.
We are here in an Arab village, so we, coming from Tel Aviv,
had to learn the traditions and reinterpret them into architecture
of the 21st century.
And the outside spaces feel as important as the inside spaces.
I mean, more so, in some ways.
Yeah, I think it connects to the way the family lives.
They are a big family, they entertain
and do family gatherings a lot.
It's very hot during almost all year and the outside atmosphere
is great all over.That's very different from the way
that we northern Europeans think about gardens as things to look at,
as a way of taming the wilderness in front of us,
but you need them here to live in, for six months of the year, I guess.
Even more.Even more, yeah.
But I think the gardens are like extra free rooms.
The one in the entrance down there, it's more wild, it's more like,
you know, like it used to be,
and then there is the garden in front of the living room,
which is more cultivated, and the third garden is like for me,
it was always like a secret garden and I like this story very much,
about the secret garden, and for me it's like an interpretation.
The architects have created a unique and personal living space
which works really well for Adnan and his family.
From this beautiful liwan to the light, spacious drawing room
and those three gardens, there's a real sense of the ancient
being woven effortlessly into the contemporary.
There's something timeless about buildings like this,
and in many ways architects think that history started in about 1930,
with modernism, but architects working in other cultures
don't have that hang up.
They have thousands of years of architectural history
they can draw on.
The third of Adnan's gardens,
overlooked by the dining area to the rear of the house.
For six months of the year the family spend a lot of time here.
It's planted in a Mediterranean style with olives, citrus and figs.
But the traditional Arabic influences are never far away.
It's really hard to believe, when you're in this wonderful
Arabian Nights style garden,
that just a few feet beyond the wall is the really busy, thriving city
of Musmus, because in here all I'm aware of is the blue sky,
the rustling of the leaves, the fantastic mosaics,
which are all around me, and the sound of birdsong.
Utterly enchanting.
And in a way it makes this place even more extraordinary,
that you know that only over there the real world exists.
A moment of peace.
I knew it wouldn't last.
Hello.Oh, there you are.
I've been looking for you.Yeah.
What have you been doing?I've just been adoring being in this magical
secret garden. Do you know what that is?
That's the biggest grapefruit I've ever seen.
No, Piers, that's a pomelo.
Is it?Yeah.
Can we pick it? Oh...Can I feel its weight in my hand?
Yes, but don't pick it, Piers, please don't pick it.
That is a big... Oh! No!Piers!
Get it back on!
I'll just stay... She did it, she did it!
He's run away and left me holding the pomelo.
Thankfully it wasn't Adnan's pride and joy,
and it doesn't stop him and his wife, Haifa,
providing us with a feast before we go.
Oh, it smells so fantastic.
This is his rice?Rice.
Maklouba. Maklouba is opposite.
This is amazing, thank you.
The food in Israel is the best food in the world.
It's wonderful. Yes. It's really wonderful.
The meal is out of this world.
All I need now is an Arabic coffee.
Ithink this house has reminded me of how,
in contemporary architecture,
we think that we have 100 years of history to play with,
but, actually, we have 13,000 years of history to play with,
and this house shows how you can really play with things
that come from any era.
And what you end up with is glorious interwoven lantern,
a shining beacon on the top of this hill.
And Israel.What can we say about Israel?
I don't think I could ever have expected anything
to be as culturally, geographically, architecturally diverse as this.
It's been so exciting.
Everything we've seen, the people we've met, everything we've eaten,
it's been new and challenging, and rather thrilling.
It has been, and really stimulating.
Incredibly stimulating.
Maybe, maybe that's just the coffee.
Yeah, the coffee is really stimulating.
I'm slightly overstimulated, I think, actually.
Oh!I could fly.