Air and its composition concern every field of spatial design, both at the micro and macro levels. The way in which airflows are controlled reveals how a built space relates to its surrounding environment. Hence, in this issue we ask: how does your house breathe?
Humankind is transforming the planet into a vast infrastructural project serving its economic system. Landscape architect Hannes Aava explores how this development is reflected in critical theory and discusses what must be done to prevent the metabolism of humankind from becoming a metastasis.
All new hard infrastructure should be engineered to double as social infrastructure, writes Mattias Malk.
Ingrid Ruudi discusses architects’ relationship with time and the various ways in which architects in their later years record their doings as history.
When a certain building technology or material is sidelined for an extended period, one is bound to get the impression that it is intrinsically obsolete. This has happened with natural stone, which architects, when asked about its potential for use, describe only as being too expensive, too labour-intensive, incompatible with the public procurement system and, as can be witnessed in renovation projects, simply too complicated to build with. The inability to imagine a future different from the present is typical to the 21st century, and hence, the main use of limestone in Estonia remains blasting it into rubble that can be utilised as landfill and concrete aggregate.
What is happening in the freshly insulated walls of author's home?
One of the ways to alleviate environmental problems might lie in architecture that brings people closer to their environment again. Estonia as a maritime nation has plenty of opportunities for this.
n Kärdla School in Hiiumaa, designed by Arhitekt Must, outdoor recess is not some laborious ideological effort, but simply an ordinary and natural idea, writes Kadri Klementi.
Mihkel Tüür writes about the wooden slat house that he built on the island of Muhu fifteen years ago.
I believe that many a reader will imagine islands in the form of a curled-up coastline—after all, often there is little else there besides sea foam and bird screeching. Although Estonian islands are slowly growing in size, we still have a very large number of small islands—reefs, rocks, islets—whereas not so many islands where people would live all year round.
Hiiumaa municipality architect Kaire Nõmm takes a look at what life could be like on one of Estonia’s main islands.
These days, to be is to be connected. Electricity, heat, road and street networks, internet connections, and water supply—it is as if all these intersecting and sometimes overlapping networks have become basic human rights. If these networks function well, our dependence on them goes unnoticed—we rarely take a moment to acknowledge the energy that travels across the sky, through underground and underwater pipelines, through wall cables, into millions of devices. On the other hand, when something disrupts the functioning of these networks, be it military aggression by a tyrannical neighbour, a sharp rise in prices, or catastrophic weather events, the political, economic, ethical, and often also spatial dimensions of these structures suddenly become apparent.
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
It seems that in architecture, the only way to ensure high quality is to rely on commitment, consideration and precision. Tomomi Hayashi and Hanno Grossschmidt do their work in a composed manner with professionalism and commitment. And their architecture speaks for them.
What is happening in the freshly insulated walls of author's home?
Is EV100 Great Public Space programme revealing or creating the uniqueness of small towns?
Now, as the process of the rough diamond becoming an alluring (architectural) gem is complete, it is time to explore the fine cuts made to achieve it. We discuss the project through three generic terms: vocabulary – defining the key terms for the building, urban – contextualising it in micro- and macro-scales, and internal – from the interior ambitions to domestic relationships.
An industrial construction technology based on modular and reusable building components can resolve many problems in the construction sector.
Strict special conditions set by the National Heritage Board have ensured excellent renovation results but not the thunderbolt contemporary solution on a par with the original.
This article is based on Demos Helsinki's report 'People First: A Vision for the Global Urban Age' published in June 2020.
The city dwellers have a smaller ecological footprint, yet as the cities grow, we must also preserve and maintain biological diversity in urban areas, which, among other things, also helps to ensure the high living standard for its residents.
In the search for architectural strategies in times of a worsening climate crisis and diminishing resources, vernacular architecture has moved into spotlight. This is mostly due to its ability to passively respond to the local climate and make use of the ‘as found’—not only in terms of natural resources and building materials, but also in terms of available craftsmanship and local communities’ skillsets. Valuable knowledge of vernacular architecture, a pragmatic yet poetic, and in fact a scalable concept, is mostly passed on through buildings themselves as epistemic artefacts.
It seems that in architecture, the only way to ensure high quality is to rely on commitment, consideration and precision. Tomomi Hayashi and Hanno Grossschmidt do their work in a composed manner with professionalism and commitment. And their architecture speaks for them.
