In a mission to spread the fresh trend of urban ecology, Onya Collective members ran DIY workshops for kids and adults. Some took place in the Central Bus Station, and others in community gardens or public spaces. Edible pallets, floating gardens, sack planters, wildflower seed bombs, water pipe gardens and stalls from upcycled materials are some of the neo-hippie participatory activities that we ran.
One very special event was the SunflowerFest, where we gave out over 1,000 little envelopes with sunflower seeds and sowing instructions, and encouraged people to sow them in public places and pin the location on this google map. We’ll see what blooms on May 1st, the international guerilla gardening day!
Informative DIY micro green nursery re-using disposable coffee cups from the adjacent coffee kiosk. Raising sensitivity about the garbage people produce by having a nice experience planting food in it. The flow is simple: finish your coffee, put some soil and seeds inside the empty cup and leave it there. Pass by and pour some love on your way to work everyday, and after a few days, you’ll get a fresh nourishing cup of greens to add to your sandwich.
Floor 7 is CBS’s secret garden, a late addition to the building. Unlike the dark maze beneath. this floor is well lit by glass walls, creating a wide, tall, clean and quiet space with spectacular views east to Jerusalem mountains and west to Jaffa beach. However, there are no shops here, nor any other function except bus platforms. It’s emptiness contrasts the rest of the station’s clatter and bustle and enables seeding new programs in the vacant space, with thousands of passengers crossing daily and participating in this architectural loophole.
Book Station – Onya Collective in collaboration with Lewinsky Garden Library and Dreamfields
Just as a book leads one in certain paths and conditions, so does the central bus station of Tel Aviv. But they are actually the opposite of one another. The station is chaotic, forcing you to hurry along, while a book is a safe haven whose aim it is to enlighten, discover and offer culture. They both tell a story of time and place. Our goal is to connect both stories. A library is a meeting point along the way, a chair to sit on, a table to discuss, a plant and a book to educate yourself, it’s a place to stay.
Lego Planter – Onya Collective – Tomer Ashkenazy
Lego planter is a flowering modular system that was designed to serve a range of different purposes such as to define a border, mark a path, as a flowering sculpture and more. Resembling an architectural model for a green-roof super-dense condominium, here the lego planter serves as a pleasant entrance to the book station library, creating a tranquil atmosphere for readers and passers by.
Mashrabiyeh – Onya Collective – Tali Wall and Vered Lily Yehezkel
Inspired by tile and Mashrabiyeh patterns, this modular screen is made of production leftovers of green wall textiles, with plants adapted to interior spaces such as ferns and Arums. Acting as a foldable curtain, the Mashrabiyeh, originally a muslim architectural breathing shading element, enables various levels of intimacy for the terminal library visitors in the exposed public terminal.
This project was accomplish thanks to Ofertex and BLDVEG
Dreamfields – Placemaking and Civil Urban Gaming Platform
Dreamfields is a playful platform for civic imagination and creative placemaking, questioning the ways we can build new spaces in the city. In combination with natural elements, the cardboard cubes function as the building blocks and “place-holders” for the Book station, on the 7th floor platform. After the Library shelves will be full with books, the cubs can be re-used and move to other locations within the station.
The Book Station built with zero budget but with the help of many:
The Garden Library for the Migrant Communities and Neighborhoods of South Tel Aviv, Dreamfields – Urban Innovators, Beit Ariela – Public Library, and the Storage department of educational administration in Tel Aviv municipality and Mati Ale. Thanks to all the kind people who donated their books and for the ones who take care of the place everyday, and especially Yoav Shafranek from Onya Collective for his endless capacity for growth.
Photos: Avigail Roubini, Yoav Shafranek, Tal Nissim, Nisan Almog
The Vertical Tea Garden is a big, pink, lavish, proud, public herbs garden located across the booking office of the alienated city bus terminal. This project allows this space to be public, where people can sniff the herbs and relax. It was built as a collaborative endeavor with the help of volunteers and friends, using upcycled materials – defective plastic pipes made for agricultural waste-water infrastructure (coded pink), reused wooden pallets and paint buckets. Its watering system, designed and built by Netafim, is making use of the CBS air conditioning waste water.
Design + construction by Onya Collective
Thanks to dozens of volunteers. special thanks to Yula Fraidman, Netafim
As global bee population diminishing due to chemical poisonings and over-industrialized agriculture, mysterious failures in eco-systems are being suspected to be related. Bees are more than pollinators and honey producers, they are also highly intelligent creatures with unique social hierarchy and fantastic architectural abilities.
The installation in the central bus station explores various bio-dynamic methods, both traditional and DIY-oriented, to construct beehives, aiming to promote people to take action and help make cities more inviting for bees. to include beehives in residential and commercial buildings might support in the creating of new relationships between humans and nature.
A temporary workshop built from materials collected around the city streets. wheels, wood leftovers, old furniture, metal scraps, show dolls, lamps and many plants are used to the creation of a pleasant and surprising place in the 7th floor of the CBS. The cabin is used as a learning space for urban agriculture and farming.
This video was shot in October, 2012 in Wadi Rum, Jordan. The name Rum most likely comes from an Aramaic root meaning ‘high’ or ‘elevated’.
In the West, Wadi Rum may be best known for its connection with British officer T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia who mysteriously died there. This work deals with loneliness, inner strength and Introspection. In the context of a busy terminal with hurrying passengers, the quiet ‘Zen’ radiating from this video invites the viewr to elevate to a higher state.
This video was projected in a deserted shop in the station.
Video by Eyal Segal
Original Score: Isaac Shushan
Editing: Miki Shalom
Agro Poetics is a challenge on poets to write in the language of nature itself. It is perhaps the least adequate of all arts for that task because it consists of words, and words are human creations, they are a tool to put order in the world, to limit the world into communicable pre-set codes, which are in their essence non-natural, but man-made.
We have an inherent belief, or perhaps wish, that everything in the world speaks a certain language. that there is a meaning to the sound of a flowing river or a root pushing another millimeter deeper into the ground.
In agro poetics, local poets were invited to submit 5 poems that describe the relation between humans and the environment, the city, nature and their interactions. 69 poets submitted poems and 20 were chosen by a poets Tehila Hakimi and Alon bar, and Architects Liat Etgar-Brix and Robert Ungar. Printed largely, they were hanged around the busiest paths within the station on unused advertisement spaces, dusty from years of low commercial value and catching the eyes of thousands daily. The gentle words project the backlight with black on white print, to contrast the colourful and visually noisy spaces.
In the opening night of the exhibition, poems were read in the central bus station’s emergency announcement system with the soft voice of Orly Rabinian surprising random people on their way home.
Participating poets: Dido (S. Didowsky), Nadav Neuman, Mati Shmuelof, Oded Peled, Adi Keisar, Agi Mishol, Ron Dahan, Tehila Hakimi, Iris Elia Cohen, Eran Hadas, Meital Zohar, Nadia Adina Rose, Alon Bar, Dorit Weissman, Eran Bar Gil, Dana Lubinsky, Amira Hess.
Unfortunately, the poems could not be translated to English or published online due to copyright issues but be sure – they are touching, witty and critical at times, bringing soft cultural messages in places where people least expect it.
Green roofs are becoming a standard in architectural renders, but in reality things are quite different and many barriers delay this green utopia – high installation prices, complex maintenance, weight and drainage problems and more. Apart from the technical issues, it seems very few projects acknowledge the fantastic spatial qualities of these green roofs, and focus mainly on the climatic or ecological values. How do we create the right facilities to enjoy the wonderful experience of sitting in a garden above the city and sniffing on fresh herbs? How can we widen the reach of green roofs from luxury homes to unused city rooftops, to bring nature closer to all?
Cool Al Bus by BLDVEG & OikoSteges - Andrew Michael Clements, Ram Hefer and Eyal Mirelman presents a way to use bus rooftops. Local eco-systems on rooftops are an elegant way to invite nature’s return to concrete and asphalt footprints in cities. Demonstrating the benefits of green roofs, insulated interiors, cleaner air and a pleasant usable rooftop, BLDVEG uses an innovative ‘OikoSteges’ modular system, fit for the extreme Mediterranean climate, to revive a depleted bus that acts as a rest room for maintenance personnel of the Central Bus Station, and make it much cooler. The use of the bus was made available thanks to Dan, the city bus company.
The bus is covered with a graffiti work called Underground by the artist One.Love representing an eco-system of roots, earthworms, root vegetables and other surprising elements. This street art work, looks at the green roof of the bus as the surface of the earth, shedding light on this surprising underworld in a fun way. On the other side, young grafitti artists joined and donated their call for a cleaner future.
GrowV – Eyal Mirelman, Saar Raz, Ram Hefer, Andrew Michael Clements – BLDVEG
‘Green roof technologies’ are, in some cases, difficult to install and may be highly expensive, Yet, roof surfaces are abundant, absorbing sun radiation and heating the city. GROWV, an original system and product design, presented for the first time, is an add-on green roof design, aiming to simplify and release green roofs from the complex system requirements. In 2015, drawings and hardware data will be distributed as part as open hardware approach, encouraging designers and makers to further develop and re-design.
