Tarte Tatin is an entry for Tartu Downtown Cultural Centre international architectural competition. It yielded the 2nd prize among 102 participants. The complex program for the building contains a museum, a library, a cinema, an event centre with two halls, a restaurant and offices. Tarte Tatin is an apple pie baked with apples as a bottom layer. When served, it is reversed. Our design had a process of a generation that had similar steps. Finally, it packed well into an Escherian zigzagging structure extending above the park. We propose a building that has a minimal footprint at the street level, thus leaving the ground for the park. It is a meeting point for the park landscape, roofed outside public space, public inside space (foyer) and the spaces for cultural services. We reveal the foundations of the buildings destroyed in World War II, which were hastily covered with the green carpet after the war. We restore the sloping riverbank to follow the trend of bringing people closer to the river. Due to the growing floor area on the upper floors, the parking area is maximized. The transparent foyer enables the park to continue into the building. The building extends above the garden creating a covered public space. The building is in the park; the park is in the building.

Team

Landscape design

Explanatory and texts

Tartu SÜKU

Bekker Port is a cargo port at the western coast of Kopli peninsula in Tallinn. For the urbanization of the area, KTA has proposed a design that blends into the existing urban fabric and enhances the local qualities. 
The story of Bekker port is influenced mainly by two features &#8211; the shoreline and industrial heritage. The scale of the proposal is rather that of a district. We were able to contemplate upon hybrid multifunctional anchor objects, 15-minute city and how to design a resilient city. 
We have used a wide variety of building and street typologies. Urban density has been laid out so that the centre and seaside promenade would provide sufficient flows of people and movement for the ground floor cafes, restaurants and boutiques as well as bigger stores, gyms, spas and movie theatres. While the middle of the district is active and lively, the edges of the area can be reserved for peaceful residential blocks. 
Bekker Quarter has an ideal scale for the residents to reach everywhere on foot and bicycle in 15 minutes &#8211; comfortably and safely. A car is not obligatory &#8211; it is only needed for longer trips or for transporting inventory. All the services are to be situated in the area. A future tramline will connect the district with the rest of the city. 
The anchor points in the area are built around the existing industrial heritage. The concrete slipway was formerly used as a boat ramp. It is to be converted into a public facility, a Spa, with a surrounding park. There is another major public building proposed at the waterfront, codenamed Opera. As Estonia is looking for a location for a new opera-house, this could serve the need.

Bekker Port masterplan

The new ERR TV Building for the Estonian Public Broadcasting is connecting the existing buildings of the organization into an integral complex. The densely packed block for studios, supporting facilities and editorial offices opens up to the street with a high lobby, that combines with the entrance square. The building is articulated into volumes to blend into the surrounding urban setting. The shape, size and facade patterns of the blocks attempt to match the adjacent buildings with the new one to become a coherent family.

Interior design

Project manager

ERR TV building

The competition for the Estonian National Stadium was a 2-phase public procurement where our entry was shortlisted for the 2nd stage and prized as the 1st runner-up. The stadium would be used for Estonian national Song and Dance Festival as the main arena for dancing events, as well as for sports. Our design is based on a concept of powerful entities comprising of small and light elements &#8211; like a tribe or a family being made of its members and the relations between them. So the strength of the roof is coming from the coordinated tensile cables that visually combine into a structure of a tree/plant. In the same way, the torch of the stadium is formed by the combined lights of smaller flame beams. Thus we attempt to reflect the resilience of Estonian nation &#8211; instead of a single monolithic core, the power is accomplished by a combination of multiple small elements. 
The tensile-compressive ring of the stadium roof is made of laminated timber. Thus we have designed the worlds largest chariot wheel. This figure draws its power from the Fenno-Ugric mythological world-wheel.

Kalev National Stadium

The competition entry for the reconstruction of the Tallinn Central Market was commissioned as a new type of marketplace. The modern market is a shopping and entertainment centre that accommodates an abundance of functions and provides a spatial structure corresponding to those functions. 
The spatial identity of the market is defined by the arched wooden construction. The arcade is a reference to the multitude of historic public buildings with vaulted ceilings that have been used for larger programmatic needs &#8211; like markets, temples, railway stations, churches and palaces. The lofty roofed public facility has layers that can be passed through via interior and exterior space.

Central Market of Tallinn

The pavilion stands on the foundation of an old market-hall. It is designed as a lightweight timber construction. The exterior walls between the structural columns are made of curtain wall elements making the pavilion transparent and light. The load-bearing structure is made of laminated timber: cross-shaped and half-cross-shaped columns. The ground floor is roofed by glued timber corbel vaults.  The pavilion is an integral part of the Tammsaare park. The connecting feature is the stepped shape of the corbel vault also reflected in the design of the light poles, information stands and playground equipment. The timber structure is finished with white weatherproof polymeric paint and treated with fireproofing. 
The timber vaults grow into domes on the roof and a spatial vault ceiling in the interior and under the canopy. The prefabricated roof elements turn the top of the pavilion into a kind of a landscape that looks interesting also from above, for example, from the upper floors of Opera-house.

Engineering

Builder

Photography

Tammsaare Park pavilion

In ancient times, people of power realized massive constructions purely by exploiting their incredible divine power: they just told their underlings to organize, by forcing ordinary people and slaves to erect a colossal monument, say, a pyramid. And they did not overemphasize the fact that sometimes thousands of people died because of an almost inhuman effort. They knew that a pyramid or some other kind of monument, a temple, for example, had to be made for it was a word of God. These kinds of edifices remain to this day, not only admirable but also somewhat dark and morbid objects of culture and history. There is nothing very much actually to do in these places anymore, but these places still tell so much about the ancient past of humanity.
Today we have another problem: no-one will think of forcing people to die constructing some monumental complex, and neither does any decent person want people to die of polluted environment.
In Aidu in North-Eastern Estonia, we witness a complex and simple situation where the in-built human drive to create something monumental, almost divine, comes together with natural, almost inevitable resources from Earth&#8217;s ground. In here lies a vast area of oil shale mines, set to produce just enough natural waste-material to create an architectural environment instead of just piling the mass of Earth up on a high stack. The excavating will continue for precisely 20 years during which time it is possible to found this large Aidu Pyramid ground, housing endless different activities from restaurants, beaches, museums, places for sports activities to vine cellars and graveyards. And the best thing is that no human has to sacrifice a life for a monumental outcome. Aidu oil shale mine&#8217;s waste-material will be arranged in a way to give something back to people. Also reminding at the same time ancient times and giving a very remote place like Aidu a fair chance to become a real part of Estonia again. An area, which people can visit with enjoyment, not just abandon it after decades of exploitation, excavating oil shale for electricity.
Text by Urmas Oja

Scale Model

Aidu Pyramid

Legendary W. Shakespeare’s play „A Midsummer Night’s Dream“ got a lighter and modernized look and feel over summer months of 2016 at Tallinn City Theatre. According to director Jaanus Rohumaa, all the events of this play are taking place around the year 2016 and not in the distance abstract past. That approach had to be emphasized by the set design, costumes and music. The production was staged in a BlackBox where physical objects had to stay at the same place, although they could change their meaning and function during the show. Set designers’ take on these topics, and constrains was to strip down all the decorations and narrative elements, which left us with pure functional and fundamental shapes. Since physical objects didn’t carry meaning by themselves, it was left to the actors to apply it on them. For example, the same rope structure had to play forest or a modern chandelier at the villa in the later stage of the play; a pile of boxes played hills and auditorium seating etc. Along with the actors who applied meaning on their physical surroundings, the audience could also wander around with their mind’s eye and play out their interpretation on these objects.

Director

Costumes

Homepage

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Designed and built in 2 weeks for Photographic Art Fair in Tallinn 2011. The installation was located in two places – the Independence Square and KUMU courtyard. Camera’s walls are built from spruce and treated with pine tar.

Camera Obscura

The outdoor theatre stage is built especially for a run of 12 performances of one play during the summer.  Its main architectural goal is to form a closed, comfortable and intimate space that creates an immediate connection with the audience and the actors. The architecture frames the landscape in a way that the park, trees and the pond become an integral part of the stage-set. The light wooden construction provides space and enables changing stage lighting dynamically. &#8220;We have tried to avoid a concrete narrative in this solution. The stage is an abstraction, which sets the mood.  We have approached the era and theme of the theatre project (beginning of the 20th century, futurism, young poets) from a different angle to visualize a complicated moment in European history.&#8221; The material we chose for the stage is 50&#215;50 mm timber, which is an excellent natural material and easy to dismantle, so it gives the theatre a possibility to re-use it for any new constructions within upcoming plays. The audience podium has 420 seats, and the stage area is 280 m². &#8220;After 12 performances the stage will be dismantled and the timber and boards used for other things. There is no need to use complicated materials; wood is a nice material that architects can easily understand and work with; it is also weather-proof.&#8221;