Category: Architecture and Urban Design

On Thursday, 18th October at 5pm in room A302 will take place Canadian artist Tor Lukasik-Foss’s artist talk.

Tor Lukasik-Foss(1967) is a visual artist, performer and writer from Canada, whose works examine the mechanics of public space and social anxiety. Over the last decade he has focused on a series of sculptural performance chambers and shadow boxes loosely assembled under the moniker “unlikely concerts”, which simultaneously fuse public and private spaces together. Side by side with his visual art practices he performs and writes songs under the pseudonym ‘tiny bill cody’ and has released collections of original songwriting over the last two decades. Tor Lukasik-Foss is currently in a four-week residency at Tallin Art Hall, organized by the Estonian Artists Association as part of the Hamilton Arts Council European artist exchange.

At the artist talk on Thursday Tor Lukasik-Foss will present his art practice, talk about the work he has been doing at the residency here in Tallinn and discuss social anxiety and its affect on sculpture and performance.

Artist talk will be held in English.

www.torlukasikoss.ca

Enrique Sobejano, architect of Arvo Pärt Centre’s soon to be opened new building, to give a public lecture in Tallinn

Opening the architecture Open Lectures season on the 20th of September at 6 pm will be Enrique Sobejano. Sobejano is the founder and partner of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, that won the architecture competition of the new building of Arvo Pärt Centre to be opened in October.

The Spanish architecture bureau received the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal and became an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects in 2015. The Madinat al-Zahra Museum by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos in Spain received the European Museum of the Year award in 2012 and the Contemporary Art Centre Córdoba was shortlisted for this year’s Mies van der Rohe Award. Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos can be characterised by a subtle sense of material and detail and a skilful use of natural light. Equally important is the context and the experiential quality of each project. In his lecture, Enrique Sobejano will introduce the new building of Arvo Pärt Centre, to be opened in October 2018. He will describe what the intentions of the architects were and what kind of space they wanted to create.

From Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos website: “The Arvo Pärt Centre has been designed as a place for concentration and study, a space conceived in order to keep the creative legacy of the great Estonian composer alive. Set in a landscape of great beauty, in the middle of a dense forest of tall pines, the design originates from a geometric pattern formed by pentagonal patios. Variations of the size and position of the same generate spatial sequences that configure the different areas of the plan. The interior space is structured around a wall—a boundary within whose thickness are housed much of the facilities, in addition to serving as a dividing element between the public and private areas of the building. In the exterior, a single element highlights the architectural proposal: a large roof conceived as a folded platform to adapt to the different heights required in the interior. The facades are treated as a filter defined by a series of thin circular columns that make up the supporting structure of the roof. The greater or lesser density in the arrangement of the pillars allows for alternate areas of great transparency with others more protected from the natural light. A slender helical observation tower and a small chapel inserted in one of the patios, complete a project in which music, landscape and architecture come into resonance.”

Enrique Sobejano (Madrid, Spain, 1957) has graduated from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning at Columbia University in New York. He is professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK) and has been a visiting critic and lecturer at various international universities worldwide. From 1986 to 1991 he was co-director of the architectural journal ARQUITECTURA. He is a founding partner of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos. The bureau has offices in Madrid and Berlin.

The Architecture and Urban Design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to all interested.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali

www.avatudloengud.ee

https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info:

Pille Epner

arhitektuur@artun.ee

Dates: 20-24 August 2018

Volume: 40 hours, 3 ECTS

Location: Department of Architecture at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Pikk tn 20, Tallinn

Number of participants: max 25

Cost: FREE (Please note that this course is meant for higher education students only)

Registration deadline: 6th of May

In case of high volume of applications, prospective participants are asked to write an essay one A4-format page in length (approximately 250 words).

Content of the course

This workshop is structured on architecture, numbers and cognition with the focus mainly on public space. Two broader topics pervade the workshop. One of them is more physical, involving translating the world into parameters, and the other is mapping social activities. The broad goal is to find connections between the two sets of topics. The environment around us consists of a number of physically countable and measurable parameters, which we can use to describe it (width of a carriageway, location of a cafe). Which parameters are the best for describing or designing the world?  As another important topic, we will map the movements or activities of human masses, using photo and image analysis and Wi-Fi positioning to this end. When, why and where are people moving and how long do they stop – this is an important set of topics, because the quality of space is largely dependent on the presence of people.  The participants in the summer academy course will be challenged to find relationships between the physical world and human activity. It will be important to find a means and method for measuring and documenting the environment. Cognition referred to in the course name refers to experience that can be used in future to make decisions to design and re-design space.  Ideally, we envision the participants who complete the academy to be capable of imagining and perceiving the implications of 1,000 people or 100 cars passing a point.

Picking key parameters (properties) from this environment has long received attention from urbanism scholars: William H. Whyte, who attempted to trace patterns of use of public space, or Kevin Lynch, who tried to find the mental model people use to understand a city.

The late 20th century brought a rise in computing power, which has resulted in change in the accuracy and use of many calculations. In the past, it was not conceivable to calculate trajectories from one building to another manually, but it is now possible. Alongside this trend, a completely new field has arisen: various kinds of simulations. Simulations make it possible to model traffic, pedestrians or both at the same time. Gathering data has become more intensive with a focus moving from gathering qualitative data to collecting quantitative data.  A large part of the summer school involves field observations, which helps instil intuition in participants as to what a given indicator means. This will also give them a clearer understanding of the computational processes and outcomes and they will be able to rationally assess the outcomes of some simulation or facts presented to them.

Participants will become well-versed in methods and means for quantitatively and qualitatively documenting the street-level space, which can in turn later be used for analysis of other places. The participant will also receive an overview of and access to software used in the framework of the workshop. At the end of the summer school, all of the data that was gathered will be made public to allow third parties to use them in their projects – for example, to plan more fluid, safer traffic conditions.

More information and link to registration form: https://www.artun.ee/summeracademy/numbers-and-cognition/

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring semester is Boštjan Vuga, stepping on the stage of Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Pikk 20, Tallinn) on 22nd of March at 6 pm to talk about possible future of construction sites that have turned into urban ruins due to economic or political crises.

SADAR+VUGA‘s largest project – Sports Park Stožice in Ljubljana, a hybrid of sports, leisure and commercial programs – was only partially completed due to the recent economic crisis. SADAR+VUGA were involved in an international student workshop searching for possible futures of the large decaying construction site that would be more appropriate for the specific post-capitalist society.

Similarly, the massive structure of the Home of Revolution (architect Marko Mušič) was never finished. It has been sitting in the urban tissue of Nikšić, Montenegro for nearly three decades after the project was abandoned in the 1980s. After winning an international competition for its adaptation and renovation, SADAR+VUGA, HHF Architects and Dijana Vučinić initiated realization of the project’s gradual transition from an urban ruin into a covered public space that generates cultural, social and economic changes in a postindustrial Montenegrin town.

Boštjan Vuga graduated at the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana in 1992 and completed the postgraduate masters course at the AA School of Architecture in London from 1993-1995. Together with Jurij Sadar, they founded the SADAR+VUGA (S+V) office in Ljubljana in 1996, which in two decades took place as one of the critical European architectural practices with production and communication based on an open, integral and innovative concept. Their most acclaimed works include Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia (1996), Central part of the National Gallery, Ljubljana (1996) Stadium and Multipurpose hall Stožice (2010) and Air Traffic Control Centre Ljubljana (2013). The office has received many national and global architectural awards (Bauwelt Prize, Iconic Award, Archmaraton Award, Piranesi award, Plečnik Prize) and eight Mies van der Rohe Award nominations. Additionally the teach and critic internationally acknowledged universities and Vuga was a co-curator at the Montenegro Pavilion, “Treasures in Disguise” at the14th Venice Biennale of Architecture “Fundamentals”, Venice 2014.

The Open Lecture Series brings to Tallinn a number of exciting architects, urban planners, academics from across the world. All Open Lectures are free of charge, in English, take place every fortnight, and are open to everyone – for both students and professionals of the field, general audience and students considering architecture for their further studies.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to all interested, drawing an audience of students as well as professionals and academics from the fields of architecture, design, engineering but also fine arts. The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Siim Tuksam

www.avatudloengud.ee
Event in Facebook

More info: Pille Epner / arhitektuur@artun.ee / +372 642 0071

OPEN LECTURE SERIES: Anastasia Pistofidou – combining the analog and the digital towards applied research focused on new materials, art and textiles

The second lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring semester will be Anastasia Pistofidou, stepping on the stage of Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Pikk 20, Tallinn) on 8th of March at 6 pm. Her lecture is titled “Towards a new discipline of Digital Fabrication, Textiles and Biology”.

Anastasia Pistofidou is a Greek architect specialized in digital fabrication technologies, design and education. She has a Master degree from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia 2010-2011 in Digital tectonics and a Bachelor Degree from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, department of architecture in 2008. She currently works as the director of the FabTextiles research lab and the Fabricademy, a new textile and technology academy. She combines the analog and the digital towards applied research focused on new materials, art and textiles.

Technological advances, new materials and computational design are changing the way we design and manufacture products, consume and interact. At fabtextiles and materials lab at Fab Lab Barcelona Pistofidou is developing and implementing a new approach on to how create, produce and distribute fashion elements, by using distributed manufacturing infrastructures and knowledge networks. She experiments with scanning the human body, creating interactive wearable garments, working with biomaterials and circular processes, using 3D printing and parametric 3D modeling. Inside this context her practices prescribe the role and profile of future designers. What are the new skills, materials and processes for the future generations?

The Open Lecture Series brings to Tallinn a number of exciting architects, urban planners, academics from across the world. All Open Lectures are free of charge, in English, take place every fortnight, and are open to everyone – for both students and professionals of the field, general audience and students considering architecture for their further studies.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to all interested, drawing an audience of students as well as professionals and academics from the fields of architecture, design, engineering but also fine arts. The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Siim Tuksam

www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

The last lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this autumn semester will be Basel-based architect Artem Kitaev, who will be stepping on the stage of Kanuti Gildi Saal (Pikk 20, Tallinn) on 14th December at 6 pm. Kitaev’s lecture is titled Kosmos / Chaos, it’s in English and free for everyone.

Originating from Moscow, Kitaev is working with a team based now in Moscow, Basel, New York and Bangkok. His architecture office KOSMOS works across typologies and on different scales – from door handles to the city, from earnest architecture to temporary installations. KOSMOS, in their own words, combines art with technology, global experience with respect towards local context and European professionalism with Russian drive.

Kitaev graduated in Moscow, started in Moscow office Meganom, then moved to Switzerland where he worked for 4 years for Herzog de Meuron, then focused on KOSMOS only. In parallel with architectural design, KOSMOS is involved in teaching, working on researches, industrial design and publications. First project built by KOSMOS team is Temporary museum for Center of Contemporary Culture Garage in Moscow.

More about Kitaev and KOSMOS: https://k-s-m-s.com/office

The Open Lecture Series brings to Tallinn a number of exciting architects, urban planners, academics from across the world. All Open Lectures are free of charge, in English, take place every fortnight, and are open to everyone – for both students and professionals of the field, general audience and students considering architecture for their further studies.

The architecture and urban planning department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to all interested, drawing an audience of students as well as professionals and academics from the fields of architecture, design, engineering but also fine arts. The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Siim Tuksam
www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

Pulp Pavilion, built for the 2015 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the California desert, using reclaimed paper.

Manja Van de Worp: “New Engineering typologies: not a hybrid – just new”

The penultimate lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this semester will be architect and engineer MANJA VAN DE WORP, director of YIP Structural Engineering London (formerly, NOUS Engineering), who will be stepping on the stage of Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Pikk 20, Tallinn) on the 30th of November at 6 pm. The lecture, as usual, is in English and free for everyone. Van de Worp’s work is focussed on the future of architectural engineering and she’ll be focussing on the new typologies of engineering in her Tallinn lecture.

Van de Worp holds Master degrees in Architecture, Structural Engineering and in Emergent Technologies and Design. She is a structural engineer with 10 years professional experience in the Construction Industry focusing on Structure, Geometry and Fabrication, while teaching at the RCA, Architectural Association & IAAC. Van de Worp has previously worked for Arup in London in the Advanced Geometry Unit and at the Advanced Technology and Research group, designing structures with a complex geometry and moveable structures.

She also launched NOUS engineering London (now YIP) in 2013 as an engineering consultancy bearing extensive knowledge of advanced structural analysis tools, complex structural systems, materials and fabrication technologies. Their current projects involve a FRP shell and a modular steel roof structure. YIP also focuses on structural product design and research based projects, looking at innovative ways to use timber, 3D printing of concrete, searching how materials not conventionally used in structural design could find their way into building engineering.

Among the largest projects that she has lately been working on is the Leadenhall Building in London, completed in 2014 (project engineer, AT&R Arup; architects: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners) The 225 m/48-floor Leadenhall Building, also known as the cheese grater, has a steel mega frame, that provides stability to the entire structure and is the worlds tallest of its kind. The ultra lightweight prefabricated floor system allows for a shallow floor and a lighter foundation. Due to footfall, all frames had to be individually designed and the connections developed and tested in collaboration with the contractor.

Currently, van de Worp is focused on the NUS kinetic facade project in Singapore. Designed by architect Joseph Lim, the social housing project has retractable origami façade that forms an external shading device, based on the Momotani folding pattern.

More about Manja van de Worp: http://www.nousengineering.com/

The architecture and urban planning department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All Open Lectures are free of charge, in English, take place every fortnight, and are open to everyone – for both students and professionals of the field, general audience and students considering architecture for their further studies. The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment and curated by Sille Pihlak and Siim Tuksam.

www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

At 5.30 pm this Thursday, on the 23rd Nov, everyone’s welcome to the architecture department (Pikk 20, 3rd floor) for lecture “Urban Biotopes – A case study of Social Nature in Stockholm, Sweden” by Stockholm-based architect and landscape architect Johan Paju.

During the last century, we lost track of natural systems in the cityscape. Johan Paju will discuss how to re-introduce a “biotope thinking” into urban landscapes through an understanding of deep structure and landscape ecology. The lecture will focus on Nordic climates, a case study of the “Taklandskapet” (The Roof Top Landscape) of Sveavägen 44 in Stockholm and basic principles of biotope design and practice by URBANGREEN. The lecture will be held in English and open for all.

Johan Paju is one of Sweden’s foremost landscape architects and has previously taught at KTH-A in Stockholm over 15 years in landscape architecture and urban design. 1998, he was one of the founders of NOD -nature oriented design and is now co-owner and Creative Director of Fojab architects, one of Sweden’s largest architectural firms. He has been active all over the world, but with a strong focus on Nordic architecture and process-oriented solutions. He got the Siena Prize in 2015 for the best landscape project in Sweden. Johan Paju has been Chairman of Stockholm’s Architectural Association as well as for the Swedish Association of Architects Academy for Landscape Architecture.

​Mexico City projekt “Foundation Alumnos47” Didier Faustino // Mesarchitecture

On the 2nd of November, Architecture Open Lecture Series will host architect and artist Didier Fiuza Faustino. Starting at 6 pm, this lecture will take place at the Von Krahl Theatre (Rataskaevu 10).

This autumn, the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Design of the Estonian Academy of Arts is inviting a number of exciting architects, urban planners, academics from across the world to Tallinn for the Open Lecture Series. The lectures are free of charge, in English, take place every fortnight, and are open to everyone – for both students and professionals of the field, general audience and students considering architecture for their further studies.

Arriving to Tallinn on the 2nd of November is Paris-based architect and artist Didier Fiuza Faustino, who is focused on how people relate to space and creates human-scale spaces. Faustino’s spatial installations are especially well known: he’s designed striking temporary stages that invite people to perform and speak up, as well as created spatial installation projects for exhibitions, asking questions about the sense of a space. Faustino’s lecture titled “Unbuilt memories” is one that also sculpture, installation, spatial design and interior architecture students, lecturers and audience should definitely not miss. All open talks are free and in English.

Didier Fiuza Faustino is an architect and artist working on the relationship between body and space. He started his own practice at the crossroad of art and architecture just after graduating in architecture in 1995. He has been developing since then a multi-faceted approach, ranging from installation to experimentation, from visual art to the creation of multi-sensorial spaces, mobile architecture and buildings. After teaching six years at the AA School in London and being two years editor in chief of the French architecture and design magazine CREE in 2015 and 2016, Didier Faustino is currently fully dedicating his time on architecture projects (Mexico, Costa Rica, Belgium, Portugal and France) and art installation and exhibitions (Vienna, Geneva, Lisbon, Los Angeles).

More about Didier Fiuza Faustino: http://www.didierfaustino.com/

The Faculty of architecture and urban design of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to all interested.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment
Curators: Sille Pihlak, Siim Tuksam

www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info: Pille Epner / arhitektuur@artun.ee / +372 642 0071

​Daniel Koehler – The Mereological City 2014
Model, scale 1:10000: computational model based on the Vertical City Schema by Ludwig Hilberseimer.

On 19th of November at 6 pm, the Open Lecture series will continue with architect, urbanist and researcher Daniel Köhler, arriving in Tallinn from London where he teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture. In his research and in his lecture in Tallinn, Köhler focuses on the mereology of cities – how particles form a whole in the example of cities, making this a lecture that in addition to architects should definitely capture the attention of urbanists.

At the Bartlett School of Architecture, Köhler leads a Research Cluster in Urban Design and is the Coordinator of the Theory and History Module of the Postgraduate B-Pro Architecture Design Program. Furthermore, he is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Innsbruck and the co-founder of the Lab for Environmental Design Strategies. Köhler has taught at the Aalto University, Vilnius Art Academy, Sci-Arc, Städelschule and the University of East London. In 2016, Köhler published “The Mereological City”, a study on the modes of part-to-whole relations between architecture and its city during modernism. His recent research investigates on the physical implications of digital logistics: cities designed by pure quantities and their architecture.

Mereology is a branch of ontology that discusses part to whole relationships. When we say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, we are performing a mereological equation. Köhler describes the architecture of the city as a compositional tension, realized with a multiplicity of buildings, with the city itself.

http://www.lab-eds.org/The-Mereological-City

More about Daniel Köhler: http://www.lab-eds.org/

The Open Lecture Series brings to Tallinn a number of exciting architects, urban planners, academics from across the world. All Open Lectures are free of charge, in English, take place every fortnight, and are open to everyone – for both students and professionals of the field, general audience and students considering architecture for their further studies.

The Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Siim Tuksam

www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info: Pille Epner / arhitektuur@artun.ee / +372 642 0071