What is an architect’s work, and what is its result? Is it a finished building, street, auditorium? Or is it an abstraction of these things—a design, i.e., project documentation that will be translated into a building by someone else? We asked several architecture collectives for their opinion.
The cultural shift towards using materials and energy that are contained within planetary boundaries requires a reconsideration of the most fundamental assumptions about how buildings interact with the world.
Designing with a territory values connection over extraction. Clara Kernreuter from Atelier LUMA and Maria Helena Luiga from kuidas.works discuss bioregional design.
If we could overcome the paradox of meat and make the hidden realities of the animal industry even slightly more visible, it is conceivable that we might begin inching towards dietary practices that do not require the exploitation of animals.
Although dictionaries define the term ‘plateau’ as a stable, fluctuation-free state, they also include a caveat: it only lasts for a certain period of time. So, what comes next?
Vertikal Nydalen, a mixed-use building in Oslo designed by Snøhetta, pushes the boundaries of a modern natural ventilation system, writes Ott Alver.
In the UK, a number of councils have adopted the passive house method in order to realise their growing ambitions in the housing sector. Could this also lead to an increase in spatial quality?
Authors traced the bigger processes that are connected to the production of engineered wood - these materials are produced from industry leftovers, but also from trees that are cut for that purpose only.
In addition to being home to trees, cities or urban environments are also home to 70% of the Estonian population—are these people not entitled to clean air as a human right?
Hence the main question of this article: what power does stench have? And who gets to feel the stench? Who talks about the stench? Who gets to decide where it stinks?
Editors' choice
What kind of relationship between a space and its surroundings would help to avoid the objectification of space—i.e., treating buildings or areas as sculptures or fully controllable objects?
Paide State Secondary School is an excellent example of the mutually complementary dialogue between a historical space and contemporary architecture.
Little was built following the re-establishment of Estonian independence in the early 1990s, however, the debates held and practices established largely came to set the foundations for the dominant issues in the architectural field in the past decades.
What kind of relationship between a space and its surroundings would help to avoid the objectification of space—i.e., treating buildings or areas as sculptures or fully controllable objects?
Most read
Thinking through stone opens up a fresh perspective on construction culture (and the lack thereof), availability of local building materials and their untapped (economic) potential, and, ultimately, on building truly long-lasting buildings.
In Tallinn, we have had quite a lot of good visions for the future: development plans, studies, and strategies. Yet, we have not acted according to these ideas which has resulted in a different environment than envisioned—especially if we look at our mobility and the quality of public spaces. Our colleagues in Vilnius have created a simple street manual and it seems that they are successful at implementing it. We gathered Jonas and Anton from Vilnius to find out how they have done it.
The old and new sauna have been framed in the same game – making you notice the archetypal farm landscape and think about our relations with our country house
Peatoimetaja Kaja Pae.
The top-level conference held at the Estonian Academy of Arts during the Tallinn Architecture Biennale dealt with the effect of digitality on architecture, production processes and society.
The Estonian National Museum’s own home was completed thanks to three very simple underpinnings: belief, trust and cooperation.
During a two-week stay in MAAJAAM, an artist residency in Neeruti village near Otepää, Belgian architect Edith Wouters reflected on what a desired future for villages in the countryside could be.
The stocky fieldstone columns of Viljandi County sometimes form a part of a romantic landscape of ruins, sometimes a utilitarian agricultural complex. Although built more than a hundred years ago, they form architecture with a strong presence in the here and now. They are a framework that can be either filled or let alone as needed.
This issue of Maja focusses on infrastructure, first and foremost on the architecture of street space. Good architecture creates unity, is capable of solving problems and enables what at first appear to be conflicting interests to be realised. Connections that go unmade in a[n urban] space are like missed opportunities.
Thinking through stone opens up a fresh perspective on construction culture (and the lack thereof), availability of local building materials and their untapped (economic) potential, and, ultimately, on building truly long-lasting buildings.