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.
The Station’s Radio was used in the first years of the mall as a venue for advertisment and music for the visitors. In its new role, it has been transformed into an aquaponic farm growing lettuce and fish. Aquaponics is an innovative method based on symbiotic relations between fish and soilless plants. Substances secreted from plant roots, growing in water, supply nurishment to the fish. In turn, the fish provide nitrogen-rich fertilizer to the plants. Aquaponic systems in closed spaces diminish the need for fertilizers and pesticides, and reduce water consumption by over 80%.
Built by Onya Collective’s Shmulik Twig with LivinGreen.
During the opening event, the radio was brought to life with an immersive dance performance by 3 dancers moving within the public passages, drawing passengers and exhibition visitors into the pink light.
Thanks to Moti Cohen, Nitzan Solan, Paul Lichtenstein and Moran Weissfisch
more than 600 empty stores are hidden in the streets of CBS. some of these storefronts transformed in to temporary galleries and spaces for exhibitions of artworks.
Zaudito Yossef presentes coal monument, works created from an extensive exploring of the coal as a work material. The coal’s past and present fused with inner world that deals with distant childhood memories and the reconstruction of them. The roots of the coal are easy to imagine, but no one will ever find out the exact origin of a specific lump of coal.
Gianphillipo Pietra presents Still Life expressing the process where the border between reality and the the imaginary world becomes more and more vague on Wood pallets found on the streets, reality is not what the eye sees, reality transforms into what the mind imagines. Based on the intertwining of dreams, the works enable the viewer to participate in a game where reality transforms through art into a more vivid way of being.
Uri Shapira in Introducing The Quiver Weed and The Yellow Algae Timelapse creates imagery of growth by means of chemical reactions, generated in a room – a “laboratory” – under controlled conditions. these landscapes are exceedingly colorful, however the “growth” brings no relief or tranquility; it is poisonous, threatening and gloomy. Eros and Tantos, growth and procreation in an encounter with death and disintegration. If our world were to be annihilated in one blow, these would be the plants to develop after the disaster.
Hilli Noy‘s Two illustrations representing two life paths that are both separate and complementing. The illustration on the right represents life in village, a solid ground that enables growth, a place the artist defines as a sanctuary of peace and innocence. The illustration on the left refers to a city, afloat, free and independent, and yet at the same time disconnected and cornered. in the city, one can feel away from his base, but still anticipates going back to everything that the village represents, all that is an element.
Niv Friedman Gilboa‘s Bomb Shelter explores the attempts to offer the shelters a different function, which is disconnected and sometimes even contradicting to their original meaning by having the option to have a look on its insides. The shelter is a claustrophobic space to which the project tries to give a sense of spaciousness. The contrast deepens when considering its context within the CBS, which holds an atomic bomb shelter within its underground basement.
Vered Lily yehezkel’s Neverland took a deserted storefront on the 5th floor of CBS, a small waxed settlement appeared. In the dense man made brutalist atmosphere of the CBS new kind of natural habitat is offered, enabling imaginative settlements to blossom. One of the ways of coming closer to our nature can be more easily explained with the meaning of the word ‘Gezellingheid’ a Dutch abstract noun (adjective form gezellig) which, depending on context, can be translated as convivial, cozy, fun, quaint and nice atmosphere, but can also connote belonging, time spent with loved ones, the fact of seeing a friend after a long absence, or general togetherness. The “Gezellingheid” can be a form of art, allowing us to get closer to nature.
5000 buses pass through the Central Bus Station daily, through raised bridges crossing residential areas, emitting hazardous fumes into the air. a single official pollution detection system, fails to specify different areas of pollution around the station and its data isn’t reachable. residents claim cancer and disease is higher than normal, while claims for 73% deviation from legal pollution levels has been recorded. The city and state numbers avoid any response to such claims. Artist David Reichmann Gibbs, working in a studio within the station, addresses this issue is a 3 part installation:
Cannery
During the 19th century miners would have entered the dangerous mines with a cannery in a small cage. If dangerous gases such as methane or carbon monoxide leaked into the mine the gases would kill the canary before killing the miners, thus providing a warning to exit the tunnels immediately. In language the idiom “cannery in a coal mine” is often used to express something whose sensitivity to adverse conditions make it a useful early indicator of such conditions.
Measuring device
A self made measuring device designed to visualize the amount of particles of dust in the air around and inside the station. This simple device consists of two sheets of paper laid together, the top sheet with a cut out circular hole exposing the paper underneath. After a certain length of time the top sheet of paper is removed leaving a circular mark (imprint) of the fallen amount of dust during the period of time that has passed.
Brownian motion. Equation.
Defining the random motion of particles suspended in a fluid or gas state. Observed when sunbeams are admitted into a shadowy space – the glittering, tumbling motion of small particles of dust is caused chiefly by true Brownian dynamics. Due to heavy air pollution, the first two entire floors of the station are closed to the public. in 2002 a seventh floor is inaugurated to solve this problem. A solution taking care of a problem yet inadvertently blocking the entrance of direct sun light into the building.
Hundreds of square meters of empty advertising surfaces, including these 120cmX180cm florescent lights boxes, are installed on central walls in the station, These remains of the hyper-privatized era of the early 1990’s in Israel, fail to draw advertisers and now pile layers of dust, some broken, some switched off.
Within the lightboxes two series of works now exhibit.
The first, the series of illustrations “Nua”, which means move, or movement, by the illustrator Zohar Winner now exhibit. The artist uses markers to reflect on daydreams.
Another series work, by landscape architect and photographer Efrat Hildessheim is MossScape. Hildessheim presents a series of four photographs, apparently documenting a simple nature outing, a weekend in the country, or in different part of the series, a fantastic scene created in nature. At the second glance, the green is too evenly green, the figures are remarkably similar and frozen, and the proportions between them are impossible in real world. The pastoral scene is undermined and somewhat disturbing; a closer look reveals that the landscape is moss, and the figures are dolls.
The Third work is the Infinite, by Onya Collective’s Nisan Almog and David Gibbs. Along a route leading from the taxi terminal into the station’s depths one comes across an old sign reading “Burger King” The known franchise has long been closed and relocated, but its name is still hanging forgotten and in disrepair.
Within this sign is installed an endless mirror – an optical illusion now occupying the space between yesterdays future and its bygone past.
Special thanks to Michal Leser who made the first step in bringing the growing moss into the bus station.
