112 Boussoles à la page Parmi les futurs projets, une ferme écologique et un théâtre de verdure. Future projects include an ecological farmand an outdoor theater. L’un des bassins de collecte d’eau permettant de stabiliser la colline. One of the water collection ponds that help stabilize the steep slopes. An unlikely garden Can a garbage dump be converted into a park with olive trees ? Peter Latz’s eco-minded green lung on the edge of Tel Aviv shows how. It’s a stretch of the imagination to conjureup the back and forth of trucks and clouds of seagulls that were drawn to the garbage of Israel’s largest city, where now stands a contemporary oasis lined with olive trees, eucalyptus and rosemary. It was « a scene worthy of Hitchcock’s The Birds—and the everyday reality on Tel Aviv’s outskirts at one point, » says Shay Levi, the young director of the park’s environmental planning and ecology department, standing by a photograph taken just before the Hiriya dump was closed. Between 1952 and 1998, millions of cubic meters of industrial and household waste were piledup here—layer after layer, until it formeda huge artifcial hill, 70 meters high. But travelers en route from the airport to the White City can now stop without holding their noses, and walk or take an electric shuttleup the shady path to the top, which offers a beautiful view of the ever-shifting Tel Aviv skyline and, beyond the Gush Dan metropolitan area, the Judean Mountains. This Mediterranean garden, which literally grew from garbage, is the lush summit of Ariel-Sharon Park, opened in 2014. Underground recycling The man behind the remediation project was German landscape architect Peter Latz : « From a distance, Hiriya appears as the ‘mystic mountain’in the midst of the plain, surrounded by two rivers. Removing it was difficult, impossible, in fact. Therefore, from the outset, our main idea was to preserve it, to turn it into a symbol. » Famous for his transformations of post-industrial landscapes, like the Duisburg-Nord blast furnaces in Germany, Latz devised a plan to seal the site with an impermeable layer of recycled concrete gravel, plastic and earth. Ponds placed above and below ground collect water. Pumps harvest the methane produced by natural fermentation inside the hill ; the gas is then converted into energy. Visitors won’t see anything more than a few metal disks, no larger than a manhole cover, concealed behind lavender bushes and vines. They also won’t notice that the hill is still moving, however imperceptibly. « The mountain itself moves and will lose four to fve meters in height over a period of 20 to 25 years, » says Latz, « but our project stabilizes the steep slopes. » Three times Central Park Open-air theaters, a landscaped lake and an ecological farmare to be created in the next few years on land that already boasts bike paths and hiking trails. The total area is 800 hectares, or « three times the size of Central Park. » Levi’s New York comparison is relevant : Tel Aviv’s park is « twinned » with Freshkills Park, built at nearly the same time on Staten Island’s former landfll. Levi knows that he has to rally public opinion : « Many people have preconceived ideas and are still worried about the smells, for example, but all they have to do is visit once to realize there’s no problem. » School kids and hikers have already adopted the site, as have the crowds attending open-air concerts. « This is maybe the most diffcult part, along with the technical challenges, » says Latz. « For us, the best way to speak to the public is to use an element that is present naturally in the surroundings. In Israel, it’s the oasis, representing life within the drought of the desert. The oasis sends the message that the place has become safe, a symbol for nature. » Other silent ambassadors are echoing this message : migrating birds heading southward have begun to use this park as a stopover.