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.

The top-level conference held at the Estonian Academy of Arts during the Tallinn Architecture Biennale dealt with the effect of digitality on architecture, production processes and society.

Nobody in the architectural domain still regards Contextualism still in terms of mimicry or imitation. A good building is not designed by doing like the neighbors do, by keeping up with the Joneses. There is no such thing as contextual authenticity. On the other hand there is little believe anymore in the power of the iconic building. The contextual designer seems to be caught in the paradox of the personal creation of something that is recognized as local and impersonal.I will not try to rewrite the critique of contextualism in architecture. Rather, what I will try to do is say something about working methods. I will speculate on a ‘knowhow’ of contextualism, much rather than a ‘knowwhy’.

The objective of the subjective preference theory founded by the Japanese acoustician Yoichi Ando is to examine the emergence of a satisfying aural experience in a space that supports learning and creative processes.

Last year I defended my Master’s thesis at the Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts researching a thoroughly new building material – peat and oil shale ash composite. Both substances in their pure form are poorly applicable or even unusable in construction. Things get interesting, however, as soon as you join the two materials.

The use of program-controlled machinery in customised production.

Eristuse ähmastumine kehade, looduse ja infrastruktuuri vahel paljastab „võimu ruumis”, mis ei ole rajatud reeglitele, vaid eeldusele, et kõik teadmiste vormid ning toimimisviisid on tuletatavad andmehulkades leiduvatest mustritest ja korrapärast.

In 2007, the city council again approved the concept “Opening Tallinn to the Sea” with one of its aims including a populated urban space. The simultaneous activities – seaside arterial roads and the wire fences obstructing the sea views and the use of the coast, however, were entirely contrary

Material use which takes advantage of its specific properties lessens the chance of later unwanted changes in the original architectural design and guides the user experience. What stops architecture from taking the helm in material innovation?

There is an ongoing discussion how to reach novelty in architecture with computation-driven tools, combining material knowledge with fabrication possibilities. In an attempt to seek for the new spatial qualities emerging and deepening the collaboration between the stakeholders of construction, we discuss it with experimental architect Rachel Armstrong, fiery engineer Manja van de Worp and innovating fabricator Jelle Feringa.