Vision Competition "New Habitats, New Beauties"
Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2019
Collaboration
Year
Place
Customer/Organiser
The site for the 2019 Vision Competition was located in the south part of Kalamaja district, near the railway lands, that will, in the near future, become an important part of Tallinn. The intent is to escape the bland globalisation of standard developer architecture and find new concepts considering alternative lifestyles of the inhabitants.
The scale of the site has been chosen to allow attention to detail as well as to provoke ideas at an urban scale. Kalamaja could be considered as one of the most vibrant areas in Tallinn, as it is in close proximity to Oldtown and to the seaside area, is still quite green and consists mainly of colorful wooden housing. To the southwest there are the railway lands of Kopli cargo station and in the northeast large industry buildings for furniture production and various offices and companies.
The approach we used to design spaces and architectures takes inspiration from nature elements. We based our concepts on “biomimicry”, that is the science that study biological strategies and how apply them to human tecnologies. In architecture is applied also for optimize building shapes or urban design.
The main funtion in the area will be residential, new homes are proposed to respond to housing demand. Other spaces will be reserved for public activities like libraries and commercials or offices. The pedonal entrance in front of industrial area offers possibility to realize services for workers and citizens as restaurants or shops. As nature makes new resources from every waste, the pourposal from this functions is to create a sustainable ecosistemic cycle. The rainwater collection is the starting point of this cycle, preserved water can be used for agricoltural production under a greenhouse along the south side of the area and the products are used as raw material for restaurant activity or are sold at the nearby market. Also organic waste, composted, will be reused for fertilize plants in the greenhouse, thus closing the cycle.
Housing units are differentiated by the size and shape in two types: Väike houses are smaller than Suur houses and they use different bio-inspired strategies for collecting wather, saving energy, preserving heat and catching sunlight.
The division of the area is inspired by the honeycombs shape or cellular tissues; with the visual axes to the main Tallinn church, the cellular urban tissue give an angulate open space where is positioned the internal street. The units are designed to respect the architectural identity of his- torical district of Kalamaya. In our project we have reused wooden planks, briks and the typical white windows frames reinterpreting the tratitional shape in a new modern way. Both houses can host two families and are surrounded by a garden. Every pedestrian access, included internal street is covered by a wooden shelter that offers a pleasant walk along the area.
Some of the technologies used are a clear reference to bio-inspired products, some examples being the insulation system inspired by the optical properties of polar bear fur or the water filtration system whose operation is derived from the osmosis system of the cell membrane. The shape of the roof of the Suur houses is inspired by the leaves of Potamogeton Crispus for channelling and draining water, while the system of window openings in the Vaike house refers to Fenestraria plants to improve the supply of light even in the most interior rooms.
