Ezekiel Golan and Yale Stav are the founders of plantware. While
working at a aeroponices root lab Ezekiel thought it was a waste to
throw away these long roots. The trees that were being used where
mainly
Ficus. Some of the roots on these trees were as long as 6 meters.
Ezekiel initially thought that he could supply different artists with
these roots for shaping. Deciding he needed to do some tests he asked
his partner Yale to help him. As Yael holds a Master's Degree in
Product Design from the Bezalel
Academy in Jerusalem and
has a large interest in the environment, she loved the idea.
Together they designed a bench seat grown from two ficus roots. Last
known
photo of the seat was in 2005. It was at this time, Yale
created a series of renders to help inspire potential artists.
Ezekiel and Yale had an agreement with
Aharon Naveh (who has some very lovely shaped trees of his own).
Ezekiel organised for a small aeroponices lab to set up near Aharon. So
that he could more easily supply roots for shaping experiments to
Aharon. Ezekiel Golan has disappeared from the Plantware's web site and
has been replaced by Gordon E. Glaze. Not sure what that's
about.
Plantware recently donated a ficus bench to prototypes - the living 
bench to the children's playground in
the "Shiba" hospital complex in Tel-Aviv.
For more information and ideas plantware.org
bench to the children's playground in
the "Shiba" hospital complex in Tel-Aviv.