When Dr. Zvi Leo Soltz passed away from melanoma he left the mountain home he redesigned to his children, neither of whom could live in it. Tal is the founder of bkr water bottle company based in San Francisco and Gil is a writer based in Paris. On Gil’s suggestion that they give the house a new purpose, they imagined the possibility of continuing the work their dad did as a psychologist, “peddling hope,” by turning the house into the Yefe Nof Residency: a place for no-name authors and groundbreaking work.

Beginning with a few core ideas they used Kickstarter to propose the new residency and Inspiration Drive, a book that would demonstrate how the residency could be used and act as an origin story for the house itself.

The theory behind Yefe Nof is that once you have the vocabulary for a thing it can begin to come into existence. Each residency offers two to four weeks to finalize a specific project presenting ideas which somehow address civilization’s most pressing challenges. All projects are part of a generative thread of ideas that break ground, lay foundation, shape a growing argument, or lend strength to an existing argument. The final works we produce are often ideas redesigned to achieve something new.