The building is located in Mahane Israel, one of the first Jewish neighborhoods established outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem in the late 19th century during the Ottoman period.
This structure, along with a small number of similar buildings, serves as a rare architectural record of the way local Jewish communities built and inhabited their own homes in this area. Very few such examples remain in the urban fabric today.
The building follows a traditional “kush” courtyard typology, with a central courtyard surrounded by residential rooms. It is constructed using traditional methods, with double-sided stone walls supporting cross-vaulted ceilings on the ground floor, and features a rock-hewn underground cistern.
The project is designed for a Jerusalem family with five children, allowing for both indoor and outdoor play areas, while utilizing the flat rooftop as an additional leisure space.
The new architectural intervention sits clearly and honestly atop the historic structure—modern, yet in dialogue with the old. New concrete arches interact with the original stone arches, playing with depth, width, and placement to create a dynamic yet respectful relationship between past and present.
