Makura's farm olive press and coffee shop

The project is a renovation of the farm's olive press, located in the foothills of the Carmel mountains. The olive press structure was built about 40 years ago and has since been used as the farm's olive press and as a small and modest store of the oil they produce. Makura farm is primarily engaged in growing organic olive groves, some of which are historical and have been there since Roman times.
The client's request was to renovate the building and the area surrounding it, enlarge the store and turn it into a cafe and place of entertainment for local residents and visitors. The vision was that the store would sell local organic produce from the neighboring communities and visitors could come and enjoy these products and spend a relaxing time in the compound surrounding the building or in a seating gallery built inside.
One of the main questions we dealt with in designing the building was its location and its integration with the texture of nature around it.
The unique location of the building, between green hills and slopes of the Carmel Mountains, led us to the first stage in the process - cleaning the building from the additions built on it over the years so that in the end, only the concrete shell remains in the heart of the hills. This action ventilated the place and gave the building space within the green background, illuminating its pleasing proportions and making it more inviting and apparent for the visitors.
Next, we began to think about how to treat the openings in the concrete shell, whose purpose, was to enable a natural dialogue between the outside and the inside.
For this reason, for the openings, we have created delicate and organic iron frames, such that on the one hand produces great shadows inside the building when the sun sets between the hills, and on the other hand will form a proper framework for the nature, when viewed from inside the building. In addition, we painted the frames in lychee red, a shade that we think compliments and highlights the shades of green that surround the building.
The other question we dealt with was how to shape the interior of the building, the olive press's relationship with the store and the cafe, and how the production of olive oil would be reflected as part of the shopping experience.
To this end, we opened a large and wide window to the oil production room from the store, which overlooks the oil production machine and allows viewing the whole process.
We decide to expand the aesthetics of the olive oil and agriculture production into the store. We chose to produce the interior furniture in a coarse and raw style, one that would better represent the agricultural work in the farm and would contrast the organic and delicate iron frames we designed for the openings that communicates with nature.
We worked with various black iron profiles, while connection and corner details getting our own interpretation and leaving the welds exposed. The shelving was constructed of black iron nets or cracked oak pallets placed on the raw iron structures.
It was fascinating to see how the store is filled with beautiful products and customers and visitors who came not only to buy but also to spend time around the place. From week to week, the area filled up more and more. Finally, the vision of the clients and the organic farming reached more and more people who both enjoyed the place and experienced how it is possible to do a different, pleasant, and better agriculture with nature.
The olive press shop project opened at the beginning of the summer of 2021. Since then, it has been breaking visitor records every weekender.
The olive press shop and the farm were selected as one of the magical places of 2021 by Telavivian magazine.