Tõnu Tunnel Photography
From 1 to 10 August 2017, an international summer school, mainly for architecture and design students, took place in Soomaa, during which students from 13 countries conceived and built the floating sauna Vala. The floating sauna is designed as a stopover and resting place for local residents and hikers in nature. The sauna from the artificial island is located in Soomaa, near a campfire site, next to which the Tõramaa River flows into the Raudna River. After the opening, the floating sauna awaits visitors and testers, now under the care of RMK as part of the hiking trail network, similar to the forest chimneys completed two years ago and the floating water slide Veetee completed during the 2016 summer school.
The process of creating a sauna encompasses architecture, interior architecture, building physics, various climatic and cultural aspects. This is a good opportunity to introduce the international summer school community to a typology that is so important in Nordic culture, and that has accompanied Estonians from birth to death throughout history. The sauna ritual on a man-made river island is intertwined with water, which floods Soomaa’s roads, meadows and yards once a year and creates an unusual new world.
The FLOODED summer university, which took place for the second time in 2017 and explores the unique natural and living environment of Soomaa, analyzes what kind of space a person needs to survive in an unusual natural environment. As a result of what they have heard and learned, the students build a small object inspired by the characteristics of the region. Whether the object takes the form of a raft, a boat or a building will be determined during the summer school: before making a choice, the students must get to know Soomaa, its natural environment and people. It is important that the object being built takes into account the changing landscape, roads and water map of Soomaa in the fifth season. Typically for Estonia, the object is always built from wood: learning about wood as a material has been one of the main starting points for the EKA Interior Architecture Department, which is organizing the summer school.
FLOODED 2017 summer school instructors: b210 architects, Sami Rintala, Hannes Praks, Justin Tucker
FLOODED 2017 summer school participants: Emma Boudreau (USA), Fernanda Cabezas (Chile), Marie-Elise Chhabra (Estonia), Fergal Clenaghan (UK), Rasmus Exo (Germany), Sigrun Perla Gisladottir (Iceland), Eetu Hyvönen (Finland), Zane Kalnina (Latvia), Alexander Kamelhair (USA), Laura Lammert (Finland), Johanne Kirketerp Nielsen (Denmark), Sonia Sobrino Ralston (Canada), Lukas Scheidegger (Switzerland), Liina Soosaar (Estonia), Gudmar Söderin (Sweden), Asia Valencic (Italy), Wenzel Witt-Dörring (Austria)
Photos by Tõnu Tunnel.
Location of VALA floating sauna: https://goo.gl/maps/ef8ybhP5aN82
Supporters: RMK, Eesti Turbatooted, Liviko
The EKA international summer school took place within the framework of the project “Tallinn Summer Academy of Art, Design and Architecture – Edge/ Blurring Boundaries”. The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund.