Moonlighting

Bezalel Academy Industrial Design Alumni Incubator

The widespread phenomenon of construction permit violations stems from the constraints of our physical space and from Israeli mentality—our cultural tendency to bend the rules and seek shortcuts and clever workarounds. While it is easy to criticize this phenomenon, it can also be seen as following a kind of mitzvah: a commandment to build our homes.
The irregular, improvised spaces created in violation of construction permits give the owners a sense of security and, in a way, serve to fulfill a fantasy. So many of us dream of the moment when we can finally quit the race, stop trying to mark our territory and take control, and know that we have enough—that what we have is grand and fulfilling. We yearn for the moment when we know that ours—the one we have built—is the best looking of them all.
Except the existence of these spaces—and the pleasant feelings they evoke in us—depends on the surrounding physical and social infrastructure. Homes need power and water, and the builders need rights to use the land.
What happens when they take control of this infrastructure too? What will our society look like when individual citizens appropriate all the spaces between buildings for their personal benefit? What happens when this illegal mitzvah becomes integral to the Israeli cityscape?