OUTSET
The Power of Stench
Andra Aaloe
ESSAY
Life on Mere (Urban) Air and Love (of the City)?
Liina-Kai Raivet
IN PRACTICE
Titled
Madli Kaljuste
ESSAY
Aerial Assamblages
Ella Prokkola
PROJECT
Pilvemets.
Tallinn, EST. Sala Terrena, ConArte
Madli Kaljuste
ESSAY
Controlled Environment
Frans Saraste
PROJECT
Helsingin Muurarimestari
Helsinki, FIN. Avarrus
Leonhard Ma
INTERVIEW
Eva Gusel. Vernacular Comfort
Roland Reemaa
PROJECT
Vertikal Nydalen. Oslo, Snøhetta
Ott Alver
PROJECT
Goldsmith Street
Norwich, GBR. Mikhail Riches
Laura Linsi
RESEARCH
On the trail of sketchy materials
Aistė Gaidilionytė, Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė
AIR
We humans have an intimate connection to air: not only does it surround us, but it also permeates us with every breath we take; it affects our well-being while we affect its composition. Every breath of air contains gases, organisms, and tiny volatile organic compounds, such as fungal spores, viruses, microbes, pollen, asbestos, and formaldehyde. The composition of air is a residue of plant life but also a product of human activity—air quality has economic, political, environmental, and social dimensions.
‘Who gets to decide whose home will stink?’ asks Andra Aaloe in the outset for this issue. Air and its composition concern every field of spatial design, both at the micro and macro levels. Air quality is directly affected by the strategic decisions of urban planners, such as those about the placement of water treatment plants and traffic arteries, but also those that concern building heights and the extent of built-up area. Lobbying and design work by landscape architects foster the creation of outdoor spaces that help to keep air breathable, especially in dense urban areas. The everlasting process of creating such outdoor spaces consists in multispecies collaboration, as described by Ella Prokkola.
As we build and operate our buildings, we release substances and particles into the air. Insulating a building thoroughly from its environment helps to keep the heating and cooling-related energy consumption and hence its operational carbon footprint under control. But, as Frans Saraste notes, focusing narrowly on the building’s energy efficiency leads to wasteful practices in the bigger picture, such as the use of short-lived composite materials—insulating air bubbles are enclosed in toxic and non-biodegradable materials. ‘In place of these multi-layered wall assemblies, many architects have started looking at monolithic assemblies,’ writes Leonard Ma regarding a brick-walled apartment building recently completed in Helsinki that forgoes any additional insulation. This is but one example of learning from and reintroducing techniques of earlier architecture that used to deal with ecology more directly—a practice that is the focus of the discussion between Roland Reemaa and Eva Gusel. The way in which air flows are controlled reveals how a built space relates to its surrounding environment. Hence, in this issue we ask: how does your house breathe?
Editor-in-chief Laura Linsi, editor Madli Kaljuste
January, 2025
ON THE COVER: Thermal imaging of spatial compression energy principle
PHOTO: Klemen Ilovar, 2023
DESIGN: Unt / Tammik
