Category: Architecture and Urban Design

On September 6, 2022, the Estonian Academy of Arts will organize a conference analyzing the vast scope of possibilities for innovation in the era of digital reality, looking more specifically into the fields of architecture, spatial design, creativity, innovation, and design education in relation to the possibilities offered by the means of digital reality.

PROGRAM

There is no fee for the conference, but you are kindly asked to sign up in advance.

The previous conference of the Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture dissecting digital reality took place in 2019. In the years since, the world around us has changed – many say, irreversibly.

The pandemic hit the global economy and culture with unprecedented force, forcing all to restructure our lives, businesses and leisure habits. The global wave of lockdowns catalyzed e-commerce, distance learning and work-from-home, as well as all digital platforms. Innovations in digital reality have gained momentum and have now become a source of completely new possibilities.

The concept of innovation radiates throughout the economy and culture today. It has been argued that for innovation to be radical, it must be design-based. We can trace logical steps from creativity and invention to design and innovation in our lives. It can be assumed that the design thinking that was highly promoted in recent decades was a bit premature. Only now, with the emergence of digital reality, has it become fully meaningful – through digital platforms, most human labor is being pre-designed.

At the conference, we will speculate on the future of space, architecture, creation, innovation and design education in the age of digital reality. Dr. Roberto Verganti will dissect innovation as the keynote speaker at the conference with his lecture titled “Design-Driven Innovation and Radical Invention of Arts”. Speakers include Emil Adamec (Brno University of Technology, Charles University), Gao Xu (Taiyuan University of Technology), Cheng Lu(Cardiff University), Max Eschenbach and Prof. Dr. Oliver Tessmann(Darmstadt University of Technology), Prof. Roemer van Toorn (UMA School of Architecture), Dr. Siim Tuksam (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Martin Melioranski (Estonian Academy of Arts). The sessions are moderated by Professor Toomas Tammis and Professor Dr. Andres Kurg. The panel discussion will be moderated by Dr. Jüri Soolep.

The conference takes place within the TAB Tallinn Architecture Biennale, always aimed at looking boldly into the future.

More about the conference.

The conference is supported by the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Estonian Association of Architects, the Estonian Cultural Endowment, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and the European Regional Development Fund.

Estonian Association of Architects together with Estonian Academy of Arts and SAP Katowice are pleased to invite for an exhibition about the cycle of lectures Masters of Architecture

The opening will take place 18.08.2022  thursday|
18:00 (EEST) I Estonian Academy of Arts | Põhja pst 7
110412 Tallinn | Estonia|

The exhibition opening on the 18th of August will be followed by a polish-estonian panel discussion about the conditions of designing in both countries. Guests invited to participate are Andro Mand, At Ader, Katrin Koov, Matgorzata Pilinkiewicz and Tomas Studniarek.
The discussion will be moderated by Justyna Boduch and Wojciech Fudala.

Masters of Architecture is a series of architecture lectures organized by the Association of Polish Architects in Katowice (SARP Katowice). This special exhibition is created to sum up the historv of all the events.
The series was originated in 2004 and supposed to be a cycle of 5 lectures onlv, given by architects representing 5 biggest European capitals. The speeches about London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Amsterdam received extremelv wide interest from local architects and architecture students. As a result, the only decision possible was to go on with organization.
The Masters of Architecture series is organized up to now and influenced the education of hundreds of architecture students who received an access to much extensive knowledge than their predecessors from post-communist era. Between 2004 and 2020, the citv of Katowice hosted 70 architects from all over the world, including winners of the most significant architecture prizes.
A moving installation consists of 70 circles, corresponding to 70 architects who visited the city of Katowice and shared their knowledge with Polish audience. All the elements of the exhibition are mobile, what encourages visitors to interact. Besides the circles with the Masters of Architecture names, the installation contains some bigger circles with architect’s portraits, together with their opinions about the city of Katowice.
An extra gesture are mirrors, located at some of the circles. When young architects are visiting the exhibition, the can see their own reflection there. Who knows, maybe
in the future the will become Masters of Architecture as well?

The event is under the Honorary Patronage of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage prof. Piotr Glinski, the Ambassador of Poland to Estonia Gregorz Koztowski and the Mavor of Katowice Marcin Krupa.

EAL website

OPENING: On July 29 at 5 p.m., students of architecture and urban planning will open this year’s wooden shelter KINO on the embankment of River Emajõgi in Tartu. You are all kindly invited to the opening.

The shelter / installation KINO is an school project created by EKA 1st-year architecture and urban planning students and completed during the summer construction study sessions. Designing and building a shelter has been the first major project of EKA architecture students for many years – this is the 17th shelter, to ve precise. Last winter, one proposal was selected from among the ideas developed for specially for Tartu city, which will now be built by the whole team of students. The KINO, consisting of three parts, will remain to enjoy for the citizens of the city until the end of Tartu’s cultural capital year, and the shelters for the next few years will also be planned and built in Tartu and for Tartu.

KINO is being produced with the support of the city of Tartu, the Estonian Cultural Foundation, the Estonian Forestry and Wood Industry Union, the Environmental Investment Center, Raitwood, Palmako and EKA.

Students and tutors:

EKA architecture and urban planning 1st year students’ design team: Alis Mäesalu, Tuule Kangur, Darja Gužovskaja, Madis Arp Keerd.

Construction team: Aiko Liisa Olek, Anabel Ainso, Anu Alver, Anneli Virts, Arabella Aabrams, Frank Kuresaar, Fred-Eric Pavel, Hugo Georg Kalaus, Karl Robin Timm, Karmo Viherpuu, Kristian Tigane, Laura Haki, Laura Venelaine, Liisalota Kroon, Rasmus Roosileht, Triinu Lamp.

The project was supervised by Ott Alver and Alvin Järving from architecture office Arhitekt Must, Ragnar Kekkonen guided the students in the carpentry workshop, and Andres Lehtla directed the constructions.

We will be happy to meet you all on the banks of Emajõgi – next to the Atlantis building in Ülejõe Park.

On Thursday, June 9, at 6 pm, we will open an exhibition of works by architecture students of the Estonian Academy of Arts in the Krull Quarter. In the evening, the first introduction of the Timber Architecture Research Center PAKK will take place.

The pop-up exhibition “REKrulli: reconstructing spacial culture” is an official side event of the New European Bauhaus Festival and it will remain open until June 12.

The REKrulli studio’s objective was to develop flexible architecture from sustainable materials, based on digital design and fabrication. We were looking at possible ways of living together beyond the usual apartment association home ownership model, while developing contemporary building structures that can produce adaptable and efficient solutions for the creation of high quality spaces with a positive environmental impact. 

REKrulli superstudio supports the ongoing research project “sLender” at EKA PAKK which examines what type of apartment building does Tallinn need today and how to solve a new apartment building using the best knowledge of the Estonian wooden house industry and architects.

SCHEDULE OF THE OPENING EVENT:

15.00 Presentations of the five best works of the Estonian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale *

17.30 Opening of the installation “Steampunk” *

Exhibition:

18.00 Introduction of the EKA Wooden Architecture Competence Center PAKK, researchers and guests speak.

18.30 Students of the Faculty of Architecture of EKA will present the visions of apartment buildings and the results of the REKrull superstudio.

THE EXHIBITION IS OPEN:

Thursday, June 9, 6 p.m. – Opening night

Friday, June 10, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday, June 11, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sunday, June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Students:

Triinu Amboja, Mariia Babur, Grete Daut, Simon Eiland, Roosmarii Kukk, Helin Kuldkepp, Patrick Liik, Kristina Lillepea, Maria Helena Luiga, Mattias Ots, Mariia Paslova, Yelyzaveta Perel, Yelyzaveta Peresada, Daria Polonska, Anna Pushkarska, Mikael Ristmets, Martin Sepp, Sander Sinnep, Kaari Maria Tirmaste, Cristin Marii Titma, Aneth Traumann, Mariia Ufimtseva, Liispet Viira, Laura Liis Vilbiks, Dalia Viškelyt

Tutors:

Architectural planning: Siim Tuksam, Sille Pihlak

Structural analysis and energy design: Adam Orlinski (Bollinger+Grohmann)

Anthropological analysis: Mattias Malk

Landscape architecture: Karin Bachmann

* The opening of the exhibition will be preceded at 3 pm by the public presentations of the five best works of the Estonian Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale and the opening of the installation “Steampunk” in the Krull Quarter. The event is organized by the Estonian Center of Architecture.

On May 5th at 6 pm, our Faculty of Architecture will be happy to present architect and historian researching the history of architecture and urban technologies, Professor Antoine Picon with an open lecture titled “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Design” at the EKA Main Hall.

Will artificial intelligence really impact design practice? If such is the case, what role would be left to humans in a more and more machine-driven context? The lecture will explore some of the possible scenarios linked to the rise of artificial intelligence. Central to these scenarios will be the question of the distribution of agency between humans and machines.

Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology and Director of Research at the Harvard GSD and Director of Research at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris. Trained as an engineer, architect, and historian, Picon works on the history of architectural and urban technologies from the eighteenth century to the present. He has published extensively on this subject.

Open Lectures are open to all architecture and design students, professionals and general audience intrigued by spatial and design matters. The lecture is in English and free of charge.

The lecture is one of the subject pre-lectures of the Conference “Innovation and Digital Reality” which takes place 6th of September 2022 in EKA: https://www.artun.ee/…/conference-innovation-and…/

The lecture and conference are supported by Estonian Association of Architects, European Regional Development Fund and EKA.

The exhibition “Open Windows” will reopen on the windows of the Library of EKA on February 21, at 4 pm.

Through the exhibition of EKA windows, different specialities of EKA introduce their most outstanding projects and the latest creations of students. The exhibition can be viewed on the windows of the EKA Library on Põhja pst and Kotzebue streets and will remain open until March 14.

Specialities represented: Installation and Sculpture, Room Design, Product and Environmental design, Visual Communication, Photography, Jewellery and Blacksmithing, Scenography, Fashion Design, Textile Design, Accessory Design, Graphics, Graphic Design, Animation, Ceramics, Industrial and Digital Product Design, Glass, Architecture, Interior Design, Painting, Art and Visual Culture, Cultural Heritage and Conservation

The exhibition of open windows of EKA made its debut in 2021 and received a warm welcome from those interested in art and art education. The Estonian Academy of Arts, located on the edge of Kalamaja, will once again enliven the city’s cultural landscape at street level. Get with it! 

On Tuesday, February 22, at 6 pm, Adrià Carbonell will give a public lecture “Contra Naturam: The Emergence of Modern Urbanism in Barcelona” in the hall of EKA (A-101)

Adrià Carbonell is an architect and urbanist. He is a lecturer in architecture at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and has previously lectured at KU Leuven, Tallinn University of Technology, Umeå Universitet, and the American University of Sharjah. He is co-founder of the research collaborative Aside, where he writes on the interplay between architecture, territory, politics and the environment. He has co-edited the book Infrastructural Love: Caring for Our Architectural Support Systems (Birkhäuser, 2022). His writings have been published in PLAN, ACE: Architecture, City and Environment, ZARCH Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Architecture and Urbanism, San Rocco, MONU, Cartha, among others. His current research addresses two guiding questions in innovative urbanism: how to reframe cosmopolitical spatial practices and how to challenge existing urban inequalities through processes of territorial redistribution.

Lecture is in English and open to the public.

The lecture will also be broadcast on EKA TV

The lecture is organized by the Faculty of Architecture of EKA together with the Estonian Association of Architects.

The lecture is supported by European Regional Development Fund.

Architects-critics Andres Sevtšuk and Lily Song from the USA will take part in the mid-term evaluation of the 5th year master’s projects. They create public discussion, giving feedback on the work and criticizing it.

The mid-term open evaluation of masters projects will take place in room A-501
Mon, December 20 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tue, Dec. 21 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We do ask you to carry your COVID vaccination certificate or proof of having had COVID and cover your nose and mouth with a mask. Academy students are subject to the usual in-house rules.

Andres Sevtšuk is an Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning at MIT, where he also leads the City Form Lab. He was previously an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has worked as an urban planner, designer and researcher in Estonia, France, Singapore, Indonesia and the USA.

Lily Song is an urban planner and scholar activist whose research, teaching and practice seek to accomplish infrastructure based mobilisations and experiments led by frontline communities and organisers in American cities and other decolonising contexts. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment at Northeastern University.

The season of open lectures is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Within the framework of the Open Lectures Series of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA, architect David Sim will take the stage in the hall of EKA on 2nd December at 6 pm with lecture “Soft City”.

This fall, all the lectures in the series revolve around the issue of health in one way or another. We have already looked at whether architecture as a process can be therapeutic or in its own way improve the person in the room, as well as whether and how architects can contribute to the healing of the construction world or improve the environment around us.

On 2nd December, David Sim will give a lecture at EKA, in which he will look at the main issues of his book “Soft City” – now also available in Estonian – from the perspective of health. In the book, Sim addresses today’s biggest challenges – how to ensure and improve the quality of life of people in a growing city, in the context of the climate change and the digital society through creating a quality living environment. We’ll be talking about Scandinavian human-centered and human-dimensioned urban planning, which aims to support a local, functional and sustainable – healthy – living environment. Sims addresses in parallel both social, spatial and environmental issues, juxtaposing theory and ideals with real-world examples and solutions from existing environments around the world. Listeners and readers do not need to have prior knowledge of urban planning, but on the other hand, this book makes for an effective tool for professionals dealing with the design of the built environment at different levels. Both Thursday’s lecture and the book are particularly timely because of climate change issues, offering modern solutions to make the urban environment more resilient and at the same time serving the community and people: everyday urban lives in our climate can still offer pleasure, health and joy.

NB! The lecture is preceded by public book presentation at 5 pm at EKA cafe lobby.

David Sim worked for Ralph Erskine in Sweden for many years and moved on to Jan Gehl’s architecture office in Denmark, where he also worked as a partner for many years and where the book “Soft City” was born. David Sim believes that creating a good city is like organizing a great party; the author takes a simple, humane and apt approach to complex topics.

In order to minimize the risk of the virus spreading, we will broadcast the lecture on EKA TV and it can be viewed along with all previous lectures at www.avatudloengud.ee as well as the faculty’s Youtube channel. The lecture can also be attended in-person – we do ask you to carry your COVID vaccination certificate or proof of having had COVID and cover your nose and mouth with a mask. Academy students are subject to the usual in-house rules. NB! You can’t ask questions via EKA TV, so it’s worth coming to the hall to participate in the discussion! The lecture is free and in English.

Curators: Sille Pihlak and Johan Tali.

The season of open lectures is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.