Designing with a territory values connection over extraction. Clara Kernreuter from Atelier LUMA and Maria Helena Luiga from kuidas.works discuss bioregional design.
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.
The sedimentary layer of Estonia deserves valorisation, conclude the material development and design studio kuidas.works. Maria Luiga and Hannes Praks write about their recent earth-based construction study trip to Paris.
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.
This issue of Maja takes the call for a moratorium on all new construction as its starting point.
A TV show called Restaurant 0 recently aired on Estonian Television, which focused on an experiment conceived by the Põhjaka chefs Ott Tomik and Märt Metsallik to open a conceptual restaurant in Viljandi within a single week. A question was raised on how it is possible to live sustainably and peacefully in a time when ecological catastrophe is imminent. Is it possible to establish a restaurant on zero budget and with zero footprint? The chosen location was an idle, rather deserted-looking 18th-century building in Viljandi. Studio kuidas.works was summoned to devise a spatial solution for the project.
