An Expansive Concrete Home That Dissolves Into The Landscape

2025 Best of Year Winner for Medium Country House

Long and low, the residence’s monolithic street facade by Pitsou Kedem Architects—a board-formed concrete expanse punctuated by a few square windows and topped by a continuous clerestory—minimizes its visual obtrusiveness while maximizing privacy. Located in Karmei Yosef, Israel, the wide entry passageway spanned by shadow-casting beams cuts through one end of the house, offering glimpses of what lies beyond—the panorama of the Elah Valley countryside—while a wall of locally sourced fieldstone introduces the second primary structural material. Warm wood joins the limited palette inside, where a linear skylight running the length of the 3,200-square-foot house creates a similarly sun-dappled passageway separating private and public zones. The latter spaces dissolve into the landscape via sliding glass walls that open onto terraces and steps descending through the garden to the pool. 

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HILA SELLA.