Urban courtyard hotel in Tel Aviv - Jaffa inspired by Jaffa’s Orange orchards.

Tel Aviv studio Dani Revesz Architects and Venice based designer Omri Revesz Design Studio (www.omrirevesz.com) transform a residential complex in the heart of Jaffa - Tel Aviv into an urban boutique hotel, featuring a courtyard inspired by Jaffa’s famous oranges orchards.

Jaffa, the southern quarter of Tel Aviv, and its oldest part, is a highly growing area in the city scape and life, uniquely giving space to a wide range of cultures and activities, presenting a solid model of conviviality in mixed-cultures contexts.

The building history itself is very interesting, it is actually build in a place where till 90 years ago there used to be an orchard. That was our conceptual ground for the design. In fact, by the relation with the orchards, we wanted the hotel to transmit the beauty and magic of Jaffa, not only by traditional motives from the variety of cultures living there in different times, but also through the nature, light and secular atmosphere that merged together these cultures.

The hotel is structured over 4 floors and divided into public spaces and private rooms. The rooms are developed along the curved contour of the building, all facing the street with an inhabitable terrace, whilst the public spaces are facing the courtyard: a green public cafè area with orange trees, blending local city life with tourism and guests.

From the entrance, through the public spaces and to the rooms and showers, all the spaces of the hotel are continuously unify by dominant concrete floor tiles, inspired by Jaffa’s traditional painted tiles, but with a contemporary floral, random pattern geometry.

In each room, a standalone concrete table structure, sealed with Tadlakt plaster (traditional water resistant pressed plaster) is dividing between the sleeping and shower (wet) zones, allowing no walls divisions in the room and an open atmosphere.

Furniture in the rooms were CNC sculptured locally out of worn-out cedar solid wood, recuperated from ancient constructions in jaffa. Beyond its structural qualities and appearance, the cedar enriches the rooms with a spectacular odours of nature.

Traditional Mashrabiya concept is used to create custom curtains, allowing filtered light to enter the rooms through the Mashrabia’s holes, but reflecting it through its full parts, blocking the sight from outside.

In each of Jaffa’s orchard lots there were limestone structures, sealed with plaster to be used as wells, ponds and irrigation canals, which led water to each of the orchard trees.
The orchard soil was covered with carpets of spring flowers resulting in a pastoral atmosphere that could only be created in orchards.
This pastoral atmosphere is what we were trying to recover and weave everywhere in the hotel: By the floral paving, the structures on which basing are placed to define the showers, a variety mashrabiya, the filtered natural light through Mashrabiya custom curtains, soft coloring and tints, natural materials, old photographs of Jaffa, its orchards, its characters and liberated atmosphere.

Photography: Shai Epstein
*Jaffa is not a holy city and has no monuments of worldwide importance, but it is diverse, cosmopolitan and interesting.
There is the sea, beaches, harbor, flea market, old city, alleys, arches, vaults, roofs, unique pink plaster, limestone, marble pillars, lots of cedar from Lebanon, painted tiles and lattice work (mashrabiya).
Its rich cultural context include many kinds of people and religions: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Maronites, Copts, Catholics, Greeks grew up Orthodox, Greek Catholics and secularists, poor, rich, immigrants, locals, pilgrims and tourists.
It has many flavours and smells: fish, hummus, musabaha, pita bread, hyssop, lemon, baklawa, coffee and so on.

But above all, Jaffa is known for its oranges JAFFA, local variety - Shamuti, that for many years gave solid ground for a mixed secular culture.