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.

Several public buildings that form functional miniature ecologies, impacting our human qualities and sense of proportion through their scale, have been erected in Purtse and Palamuse.

The reconstruction of buildings under heritage protection and providing them with new content is one way to make a small borough known and alive again.

What are the advantages and pull factors of rural areas?

In addition to bringing together various public functions, the former Kulla confirmation house reconstructed as a library and rural municipality office also functions as a gate to the local community.

Careful homework on selecting the location for Suure-Jaani health centre, the wise decisions made by the local government as well as drawing together a number of public functions have provided the means for the emergence of very good architecture and the future town centre of Suure-Jaani.

There are approximately 50 unused or ruined churches in Estonia. The Master’s thesis suggests establishing columbaria, i.e. burial places for cinerary urns, in abandoned sanctuaries in Estonia. Changing the condition of the buildings as little as possible is intentional: the lives of the buried souls and the sanctuaries that surround them have ended.

The Master’s thesis is concentrated on four Estonian small towns (Mõisaküla, Püssi, Kiviõli and Räpina) implementing three stages: intervention, new programme and planning. The intervention is a small-scale realization of an idea, such as an installation, which functions as a test to initiate a dialogue with the residents of the town. The new programme describes the implementation of the idea in a small town, including a new function for a plot by which both the urban landscape and structure undergo changes.

What changes will the administrative reform bring to spatial planning as seen from the level of the state? Many decisions made by local governments have an impact on space, so how can we make these decisions more informed?

Acting in accordance with statute of the heritage conservation area in a shrinking city like Valga is impossible. Investing in listed buildings (architectural monuments) and buildings located in heritage conservation areas should be promoted in shrinking cities when the support measures for various fields are developed.