Twelve respondents—offices, architects, and collectives—describe what they take to be the result of an architect’s work. Their answers are accompanied by images of workplaces and moments in which the result is most clearly seen.
Garbage Kids is a collective of architects-turned-carpenters. The driving force behind their work is their frustration with a society that prioritises growth over sustainability and encourages overconsumption in a world with limited resources. In response, they use traditional craftsmanship and folk wisdom to create objects from found materials such as broken branches, scrap metal, and stones from abandoned quarries. Their practice strives to be intuitive, explorative, and free. Luka Abashidze, Ulla Alla, and Nika Gabiskiria share their thoughts.
One spot offering coffee, pastries, and tables to sit at has set up shop on Pärnu Road, between a New Age shop and Reval Café. It is situated on the commercial floor of a six-story residential building designed in 1937 by architect Boris Chernov. Entering through a modestly recessed door- way, I find a simple, three-toned interior: grey, walnut brown, and Isabella white. Concrete, wood, plaster, and a bit of metal.
From the largest covered produce markets to scattered street stalls, Riga offers a potent architectural feast when it comes to food markets, writes Ieva Zībārte.
Hanna Eliise Kitter and Saskia Krautman discuss with Elke Krasny why we need a critical care lens in architecture.
Anni Martin writes about the Spatialist Studio designed Kopli 93 community courtyard, which received the New European Bauhaus Rising Star Award from the European Commission.
Restaurant Tummo in Vilnius is housed in an old industrial building, which has been reconstructed following the principle of material reuse.
What follows is an eclectic tribute to Tallinn’s Central Market (Keskturg)—a place where the criminal and corrupt shadow of a murky past intertwines with everyday market news and daily gossip about potatoes, sugar, and coffee.
Henri Kopra, Iiris Tähti Toom, and Bianka Plüschke-Altof write about apparently modest urban gardening sites that comprise a wealth of ecological, spatial, and social infrastructure.
I have long waited for bread-focused restaurants or kiosks to appear in Tallinn, since good, fresh bread—whether sourdough, baguette, or brioche—is one of my greatest weaknesses. Happily enough, two such places sprang up almost at the same time. In the summer of 2024, the red-and-white Sai! opened on the edge of the Old Town, serving kurja koera võikus (literally ‘angry dog sandwiches’ in Estonian); at the end of the year, it was followed by the predominantly blue-toned Sanga in the Rotermann Quarter.
Editors' choice
What kind of relationship between a space and its surroundings would help to avoid the objectification of space—i.e., treating buildings or areas as sculptures or fully controllable objects?
Paide State Secondary School is an excellent example of the mutually complementary dialogue between a historical space and contemporary architecture.
Little was built following the re-establishment of Estonian independence in the early 1990s, however, the debates held and practices established largely came to set the foundations for the dominant issues in the architectural field in the past decades.
What kind of relationship between a space and its surroundings would help to avoid the objectification of space—i.e., treating buildings or areas as sculptures or fully controllable objects?
Most read
There was a saying in Soviet times that where the railway begins, common sense ends. Looking at the development of infrastructure projects and their particular tendency to become encapsulated in a highly detailed jungle of pipes and wires before much more important issues are resolved, this saying should be paraphrased today as: “Where the designing of infrastructure begins, architecture ends.”
In creating architecture, Ateljé Ö takes cue from materials in their pure form, constructional principles, contextual entities, and finding complexity in the simplest of concepts, write Joel Winsnes and Mats Wahlström Walter.
The Curated Biodiversity landscape laboratory in Tartu has organised six experiments so far. Running a small operation, we might not be able to change the world at the snap of a finger, but we can start with what we can handle.
Lihula is a small town where every new business can potentially shift the focal point. The competition ‘Great Public Spaces’ dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia focused on the historical axis and main street of the town–Tallinn Road. Our competition entry ‘Hõbelauk’ aimed at diversifying the street space and highlighting the mysterious local spatial potentials. We wished to allow every new potential to rise and shine thus enhancing the appearance and also natural disappearance of various places.
Infinity is the concept of zero to get more zeros.
The following 1,398 spaces with characters popped into my mind as one complete package while engaged in pleasant small talk and contemplation of my chosen status as philosopher at the primeval clay table of Restaurant 0, hidden in the terrific sand dunes left to us by the last ice age. And, after having shared a night with my wonderful newly found companions. A really big gang bang! Thank you, Restaurant 0!
When a certain building technology or material is sidelined for an extended period, one is bound to get the impression that it is intrinsically obsolete. This has happened with natural stone, which architects, when asked about its potential for use, describe only as being too expensive, too labour-intensive, incompatible with the public procurement system and, as can be witnessed in renovation projects, simply too complicated to build with. The inability to imagine a future different from the present is typical to the 21st century, and hence, the main use of limestone in Estonia remains blasting it into rubble that can be utilised as landfill and concrete aggregate.
n Kärdla School in Hiiumaa, designed by Arhitekt Must, outdoor recess is not some laborious ideological effort, but simply an ordinary and natural idea, writes Kadri Klementi.
Case Study - 4 social housing units with 68 apartments in Switzerland, architecture Gilles Perraudin and Atelier Archiplein.
There was a saying in Soviet times that where the railway begins, common sense ends. Looking at the development of infrastructure projects and their particular tendency to become encapsulated in a highly detailed jungle of pipes and wires before much more important issues are resolved, this saying should be paraphrased today as: “Where the designing of infrastructure begins, architecture ends.”