12 Olive Trees House

12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal

12 OLIVE TREES HOUSE

Elias Khuri Architects

LEAD ARCHITECT
Elias Khuri

ILLUSTRATIONS
Cecilia Pruccoli

PHOTO EDITING
newlandscapes.org

PHOTOGRAPHS
Thomas Dallal, Elias Khuri

AREA
188 m²

YEAR
2022

LOCATION
Palestine

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect.

The Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 constituted the first architectural view, so to speak.

12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal
12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal

They illustrate what can be termed the “Incomplete Scenes”: shards of walls, remnants of the floor, scattered piles of stones, or an open arc looking into the horizon.

It is within this architectural view that the “Informal Architecture” are located; they are made up of unfinished, often un-plastered, bricks; they are under ongoing construction, enmeshed in a process of informal growth and transformation.

12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal

The house exists in this fragmented context, and definitely belongs to the fragments of the current architectural view, and their planning sought to provide a solution for local architecture, while also suggesting new interpretations of the Palestinian house.

12 TREES/7 CUBES/5 COURTYARDS -

Located in al-Mashhad, one of the Palestinian villages that held its ground even after the establishment of Israel in 1948, the House with the Twelve Olive Trees lies in what was once an agricultural area famed for its plentiful olive trees.

Only a few of these trees survived demographic and urban expansions and residential houses substituted olive trees without any prior planning.

12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal

This house was built while preserving all twelve olive trees that surround it through the creation of a sustained relationship between the void and the cubic blocks, between the exterior and the interior.

THE SHAPE OF THE VOID -

The “excavated” space leads back to the tectonic idea of the massiveness of Palestinian stone houses.

The house is closed to the outside in order to open up to different courtyards and spaces trying to build continuous relationships between the inside and the outside.

12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal
12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal

Voids of different shapes and sizes, different heights, and different borders make these spaces open to the sky in different ways, allowing to create of different movements between inside and outside and giving the possibility to pass on different roofs to create always new points of view.

IN PRAISE OF LIGHT/ IN PRAISE OF SHADOW -

All the interior spaces of the house overlook more than one external space, and the rooms are distributed between courtyards, providing different degrees of light and shade throughout the day.

12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri

This distribution allows the light and the air to pass from one void to another, and the windows to frame a different olive tree each time.

The walls turn into a living space inhabited by deep windows and seats that look outward and inward. The house is built with different natural materials:

12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri

stone floors from Galilee, stairs carved in stone that recall the use of Palestinian handcrafts, wooden windows, and olive-colored ceramic tiles.

The presence of trees and vegetation, shade and variation of light and color, gravity and natural materials, and the references to the historical and cultural heritage form a deep sense of belonging and identity.

12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri


12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal
12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri


12 Olive Trees House
© Thomas Dallal
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri
12 Olive Trees House
© Elias Khuri


12 Olive Trees House
Elevation
12 Olive Trees House
Elevation
12 Olive Trees House
Elevation
12 Olive Trees House
Elevation


12 Olive Trees House
Section
12 Olive Trees House
Section
12 Olive Trees House
Section
12 Olive Trees House
Axonometric Illustration


12 Olive Trees House
Sketch
12 Olive Trees House
Sketch


12 Olive Trees House
Plan - Ground Floor
12 Olive Trees House
Exploded Axo