Demos Helsinki. Human-Centered Smart Cities
This article is based on Demos Helsinki’s report ‘People First: A Vision for the Global Urban Age’ published in June 2020.
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Winter 2021 (103): Smart Living Environment
Smart cities are not merely for people and robots. Due to climate change and biodiversity decline, the combination of the physical and the digital is increasingly related to the needs of all species. Combining the natural and built worlds can be assisted by biotechnology, for instance, the use of bioreactors as a source of energy and by the smart application of landscape data in urban design, for instance, by means of biodigital twins or augmented reality. It shifts our perspective and poses the most critical and intriguing challenge of a smart living environment—how to adopt a life-centred rather than human-centred approach.
Bathology
Bathology is an example of a possible artistic method which attempts to take into account the object’s perspective, the object as is. The budding bathology was inspired by the Lithuanian artist Marija Baranauskaitė and her exploration of sofanity. Namely, in 2018 she started developing the Sofa Project, a conceptual clowning performance where the target audience is not sentient, not even human but a sofa. In addition to being entertaining to human audiences as well as object-audiences (hopefully), it is also compelling for theoretical reasons, evoking among other things musings in the vein of Philosophy of Technology, Critical Posthumanism and Object-Oriented Ontology as well as exercises in non-anthropocentric thinking, and attempts to place something other than a human in the position of a subject.
Environmental Psychology in Interior Architecture
How can human well-being and cognitive processes benefit from evidence-based design? We discuss it on the example of teaching and research facility in the Delta Centre of Tartu University and the creative house Vita of Tallinn University.
Summer-autumn 2020 (101-102): Interior Design
This issue of Maja is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Estonian Association of Interior Architects.
The Revived Narva Castle—a Factory of the History of Modern Times
Rather than exhibiting objects and asking questions, the contemporary museum has become a place for experiences requiring submission to the logic of storytelling. Triin Ojari considers how the reconstructed Narva Castle relates to history and providing experiences.
An Interview With Avatars
Space Popular is a multidisciplinary design and research practice led by Lara Lesmes & Fredrik Hellberg. They make physical spaces — buildings, interiors, furnishings — and virtual spaces, concentrating on how the two will be fused in the future. Their augmented virtual reality project “The Venn Room” was on display at the Tallinn Architecture Biennial main exhibition.
Beauty Matters Thanks to Faith in Human
Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB) “Beauty Matters: The Resurgence of Beauty“, 11.09–15.09 2019.
Although architecture may help to solve (and it does solve) problems, we should not regard it as a primary tool for solving social etc. problems but as a creator of values, novelty and wellbeing. In the 20th century, the creative part of architecture that can also deal with the question of human condition has been undeservedly overshadowed by pragmatics.
Explorations in the Estonian Countryside: How to Make Villages Smart?
During a two-week stay in MAAJAAM, an artist residency in Neeruti village near Otepää, Belgian architect Edith Wouters reflected on what a desired future for villages in the countryside could be.
Theoretically Grounded Architecture: Where Did it Disappear?
Andres Sevtsuk is a Professor of Urban Science and Planning at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, where he also leads the City Form Lab. Maroš Krivý is a professor of Urban Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts.They shared their insights on current state and challenges of Estonian architecture.