Dean of the Faculty of Architecture Sille Pihlak, Joosep Pärn and Prorector Anne Pikkov
This year’s Jaan Holt Scholarship was awarded to Joosep Pärn, a final-year student of Architecture and Urban Design, for the strong thematic development of his thesis.
Architecture students are encouraged already 7th year by Jaan Holt, an Estonian architect of Virginia origin and Professor Emeritus of Virginia Tech, with a scholarship. The purpose of the scholarship is to support the studies, creative activities and self-development of one successful student of the last year of architecture and urban planning at EKA. The amount of the scholarship is 1000 euros.
The scholarship committee included Dr. Sille Pihlak, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of EKA, Prof. Andres Ojari, Head of the Architecture and Urban Design Curricula, Prof. Toomas Tammis and Roland Reemaa, Heads of the Master’s Studios.
The committee highlighted Joosep Pärn as a creatively active student who, in his master’s thesis, is investigating how to use digital tools to find an effective use for low-value wood industry surpluses in architecture. The committee values the role of the future architect in the sustainable and innovative application of traditional local material use and in prototyping the process, combining local and global scales. The master’s thesis was seen as having the potential to develop into a doctoral thesis.
Excerpt from the master’s thesis description: “My proposed idea is to return to the natural shape of the material and to use various digital production technologies to understand the complexity arising from the natural form of the material and to use it effectively.
By 3D scanning wood, it is possible to use real physical elements in the digital model, instead of dealing with abstract forms. Milling and 3D printing allow the production of intermediate components that fit precisely between irregularly shaped wooden elements.
The goal is to think through and create a process of material use that is more natural in approach – an architectural method that is an iterative circulation of ideas between the perceptions of the architect or builder and digital parametric methods.”
Jaan Holt is a long-time director and professor emeritus of the Virginia Tech Washington-Alexandria Center for Architecture and an honorary member of the Estonian Academy of Arts. He has been a long-term supporter of Estonian architectural education, creating opportunities for many of our architects to exchange at the Architecture Center since 1992, where a large number of architects with an art academy background have been teaching and studying.