Cool Al Bus – Cooling CBS Scrap Bus with a Localized Green Roof
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.
Photos: Robert Ungar,
Tal Nissim, Avigail Roubini
Isometric Drawing: Gil Cohen, Tamar Alon