The Right of the Individual versus the Rights of the General Public

The Impact of Individuals on the Façades of Shared Buildings

This study was submitted as part of M.A. studies in Architecture, Tel Aviv University, November 2020
Advisor: Dr. Efrat Blumenfeld-Lieberthal 

A random stroll through almost every neighborhood in towns across Israel reveals a common characteristic: shared buildings that have acquired a new morphological stratum of air-conditioners, electrical cables, security bars, laundry lines, awnings, and more. In time these have become an integral part of the shared façades of the buildings that surround us, an inseparable part of the aesthetic that we identify as a typical and familiar Israeli cityscape, despite the fact that such changes to the façades are not permissible by law.

Shared buildings have acquired a new morphological stratum of air-conditioners, electrical cables, security bars, laundry lines, awnings, and more

Shared buildings were built across the country, mostly in the 1950s, to cope with the urgent need to house hundreds of thousands of new immigrants who were then inundating the young state. An examination of the shared façades of these buildings reveals that the attempt to preserve them in the long term, and the modernistic vision underlying their design, have not stood the test of time. Public shared-building projects were not only planned as an efficient means of providing housing, but as part of a wider vision: repetitive spatial elements espousing clean form and orderly, uniform façades.  

This research compares façades of buildings in two neighborhoods in the center of the country, chosen as case studies because of their physical and ‘historical’ similarity, yet different socio-economic backgrounds. The study contrasts the right of the individual and the rights of the general public: how do individuals, through activity in their homes, impact the façades of shared buildings in the two Tel Aviv neighborhoods of Yad Eliyahu and Green Ramat Aviv?

The goal of the research is to map, measure and compare the extent of the interference of details on the façades of buildings in the two neighborhoods. Attention is thereby directed to the activity of individuals in their private domain, which dramatically influences the public domain, while aware of the legal and planning ramifications of their activity.  

The research focuses on façades of apartment buildings, built between the 1950s and the early 1970s, in each of the neighborhoods. For this purpose, a representative sampling was chosen, which included several “couplings” of buildings in each neighborhood that were similar in type and size. The research examined the addition of elements on the façades of the buildings and modifications to openings, which were not part of the original plan but the private initiative of residents. The ‘texture’ and new appearance of the buildings became a permanent part of their capacity and the form that enveloped the building.[1] The collection of data was based on field trips, documentation, comparative examination of data and findings in the archive of the Engineering Administration. The extraction and integration of data was assisted by the Geographic Information System (GIS) and Google Maps. Similarly, permanent parameters were defined for measuring and comparing intrusions on the façades, drawings, processing and quantification of the data, repeat measurement and comparison, and more.   

A close look at the façades of the buildings reveal that, in almost all cases, additions and modifications were done by the apartment owners themselves, in order to improve the living conditions of their homes. Their activity had implications and an impact on the façade of the building, however. Adding an air-conditioning unit to the apartment, for example, requires an external compressor; personal security demands barred windows; and an awning shades the balcony.  

The phenomenon could be perceived as the reasonable desire of individual apartment owners to improve their standard of living, at no great inconvenience to their neighbors. The fact is, however, that an enormous number of individual owners are active in that manner, in the privacy of their own homes and for their own personal comfort, thereby creating a ‘cumulative’ phenomenon that makes a real impact and has high visibility in the Israeli cityscape.  

The study examines the term “façade” in relation to frameworks of legal concepts that include the legal entity of “shared building,” as well as its juridical status with respect to municipal planning bodies, and in historical planning contexts. Furthermore, the study presents a historical survey of public housing and of the two neighborhoods under discussion, citing socio-economic and statistical characteristics. In parallel, the study examines concepts that are relevant to work done in the field of urban theory, with a focus on the self-organization phenomena in the city as an inseparable part of the dynamic that appears in urban space – insofar as we are all planners, albeit on a personal scale. 

A few results stood out at the empirical level of the study. Comparing buildings – in each of the two neighborhoods – the cumulative value of the extent of interference on façades in Yad Eliyahu was 50 percent greater than the comparable value in Green Ramat Aviv. The latter is ranked 8 on the Socio-Economic Index of Local Authorities, while Yad Eliyahu only ranks 5. Ostensibly, there is some correlation that suggests a connection between the socio-economic level of the residents of the neighborhoods and the extent of individual interference on the walls of shared buildings. That raises a question, however: Do these gaps derive from the difference in the socio-economic level of the two neighborhoods, or from other factors that could be by-products, which touch on different cultural, environmental or communal perceptions.[2] In this respect, it must be noted that the limited number of façades examined, and in particular the dearth of updated historical-statistical information, do not allow for any unequivocal correlation.  

Furthermore, the research showed that some of the work done on shared buildings may have been influenced by environmental or typological factors, such as the security concerns of the residents. An example is the especially high prevalence of bars on windows and balconies of ground-floor apartments in both neighborhoods. On the other hand, most of the residents of a certain building examined in the study had removed the panel that covered the lower part of balcony railings. The item had been part of the original architecture, designed to give the geometry of the façade a kind of repetitive cadence. The removal of the panels by some of the residents (for the most part because of the enclosure of their balconies), and the various ways they dealt with the resultant openings, left holes of different sizes in the façade, thereby severing the connection between the original plan and its present condition.

Most of the residents of a certain building examined in the study had removed the panel that covered the lower part of balcony railings. The item had been part of the original architecture, designed to give the geometry of the façade a kind of repetitive cadence. The removal of the panels by some of the residents left holes of different sizes in the façade, thereby severing the connection between the original plan and its present condition

Legally, people can make changes in their own apartments, as long as they do not damage the façade or the appearance of the building. For this purpose it is mandatory to secure a building permit from the relevant authorities in advance. It was obvious in both neighborhoods that residents took a light view of the legal requirements, and were not deterred from interfering with the façade of the building or indeed respecting any parameters at all.

But beyond comparative numerical data presented in this study, the findings of the study communicate by means of diagrams that enable the reader to comprehend visually the relative presence and the way modifications of the façade have proliferated. The rationale behind this method is to focus attention on the fact that planning a façade begins with architectural drawings, and therefore, in the same way, actual developments can be added to the original plan. This offers an opportunity for examining the idealized vision and original façades in their encounter with reality, and returning together to the drawing board.

The research uncovered an intriguing, instructive phenomenon: the significant volume of individual interference on the façade of the shared building does not necessarily represent the main point of the matter; rather it is the conspicuous absence of coordination and organization of activity of individual residents with respect to the shared façade. The diagrams demonstrate even more convincingly that the appearance the façade assumes is spontaneous, unplanned, constructed from an assortment of individual actions executed for a variety of reasons. It is possible that not only did they neglect to coordinate interference in the façade, but deliberately avoided such coordination as well.