Category: Faculty of Architecture

The EKA Interior Architecture Department is happy to announce that on 18 June at 4 pm, we’ll be opening an exhibition at the headquarters of the Estonian Forest Management Centre RMK (Toompuiestee 24, Tallinn), giving the wider public a chance to see the project our 1st year Bachelor’s programme students have been working on since September 2017.

The task given to the students was to re-think a campingsite at Nikerjärve, Aegviidu – this is the fourth project in a line of our co-operation projects with the RMK, looking into how contemporary, context-driven spatial design could improve the forest infrastructure for hikers and wanderers of all types. The exhibition will showcase 12 ideas for the area from 12 students, with scaled models and explanations. Of the 12, three concepts were selected earlier in spring and developed as teamwork – and of those three, one has been selected to be worked on further with the whole team, and to be built by August 2018, when the area will open for users in its new shape and form.

Facebook event.

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 second lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring semester will be Ulrika Karlsson, stepping on the stage of Kanuti Gildi Saal (Pikk 20, Tallinn) on 22nd of February at 6 pm. Her lecture is titled “Rustic Figurations and Aesthetics Of the Fall”.

Ulrika Karlsson is an architect and founding member servo stockholm and of the newly started architectural design collaborative Brrum. She is a professor of architecture at KTH School of Architecture, with a focus on digital methods and tools. Karlsson is also a professor at Konstfack – University College of Arts, Craft and Design. She has been a visiting faculty at Bartlett, UCL, London, teaching Urban Design. Karlsson has also taught at UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design. She received her Architecture degree from Columbia University and Landscape Architecture degree from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Karlsson has lectured and exhibited internationally and contributed to numerous journals including Perspecta, Via, Arkitektur and AD. She has exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Centre Pompidou, ArkDes, SFMoMA, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Wexner Center for the Arts, MoMA/QNS, Artists Space, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. servo’s work is part of the permanent collections of SFMoMA and the FRAC Centre.

Engaging a playful use of technology and material experimentation, her practice has a specific interest in the role of architectural representations and their translations, where we sometimes encounter the conflation of material and information. A current project with Brrum includes “And or not”, a proposal for a public artwork for the planned new park, Norrastationsparen in Hagastaden, Stockholm, which will be finished 2021.

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

1st of February Thursday, will start bright and early at 9AM with the next Morning Coffee event, where students and graduates from our department will come and share their experiences from studying, working or doing an apprenticeship somewhere else in the world – through the spectrum of space and spatial design. On the stage this time: experiences and views of the world, learning and spatial design: Amr Gamal Mohamed Aladl Elshaaer from EGYPT and Ahmad Hussein from JORDAN!

Also: this Morning Coffee event will be in English, spread the news so it reaches every EKA Erasmus student!

This event is perfect for students and those wanting to become a student, but also tutors; our Nunne St door is also open to anyone from other EKA departments or other schools. The interior architecture department Morning Coffee events take place every first Thursday of the month. The event is worthy of its name: there will most definitely also be coffee – and upon occasion, there has been also delicious cake (for the cake, you might want to bring a tiny bit of cash)

Set your alarm clocks, join us!

Location: Interior Architecture department, Nunne 16, Tallinn

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1951829291513853/

The first lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring semester will be Yael Reisner, stepping on the stage of Kanuti Gildi Saal (Pikk 20, Tallinn) on 8th of February at 6 pm. Her lecture is titled “Beauty Does Matter – The Cultural Bias, The Enigma and The Timely Pursuit of New Beauties in Architecture”.

In 2010, Reisner – with design writer Fleur Watson – published a book of interviews with more than a dozen architects, titled “Architecture and Beauty, Conversation With Architects About A Troubled Relationship”. In the book, Reisner talked with the architects about their relationship to beauty, the relationship of architecture and beauty being one that whole generations of architects have tried to avoid. The questions of architecture and aesthetics, or more widely culture and aesthetics were also explored in Reisner’s PhD (RMIT, 2009) and will be the focus of her lecture in Tallinn. Why don’t architects like to talk about beauty?

Born in Tel Aviv, Reisner has lived in London since 1990. She has a PhD in architecture (by design) from RMIT Melbourne, Australia, a Diploma from the Architectural Association in London (including RIBA part 1 and part 2, and a BSc in Biology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2004, she founded the Yael Reisner Studio, an architectural research-lead practice.

Event on Facebook
More about Yael Reisner: http://www.yaelreisner.com/

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

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

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/