There are all sorts of things you can do to liven up neglected bits of cities: new shops, new paint jobs, new plant life. But when HQ Architects decided to jazz up Valero Square, a public space next to a tram line in Jerusalem, they veered a little off the beaten path.
By which we mean they installed four absolutely enormous poppies.
The poppies function as both streetlights (there are lightbulbs where the poppy seeds should be) and parasols on sunny days. At rest, they droop sadly, but when people pass close to them, or a tram approaches, they transform from this…
…to this:
Here’s a video of them in motion:
Warde from HQ Architects on Vimeo.
Who wouldn’t be cheered up by that?
They really are as big as they look, too: each flower is 9m in diameter. Most of the people in these photos look pretty surprised that they’re there.
As the architects note on design site Designboom, the flowers give a “new sensation to an area that needs it by creating an interaction with the people that use it”. Indeed.
