Kärdla School. An Invisible Schoolhouse
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.
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.
Elo Kiivet revisits Tulbi-Veeriku quarter in Tartu where the friction between these two dimensions has given rise to one of the most praised new neighbourhoods of early noughties in Estonia.
In Vilnius, a group of friends came together to acquire the top floor of a Soviet-era factory building. They later cooperatively developed it into their homes. Laura Linsi talks to Mantas Peteraitis about how the project came to be.
Community-led housing development is leading the way from speculati ve to non-profit housing construction models. Eneli Kleemann and Helena Rummo discuss the spatial possibilities that come with it.
Improving the architectural quality of the existing housing stock requires integrating engineering solutions with architectural decisions. In the ongoing renovation marathon, it is important to discuss what kind of added value could be drawn from the existing to unleash the full spatial potential of renovation and to create good user-friendly spaces, writes Diana Drobot.
So far, residential renovation has mainly targeted single buildings, but the idea of area-based renovation is becoming increasingly widespread.