The hybrid building merges the library and botanical garden into a spatial whole, a symbiosis of design and high technology. It is located in Burggarten in Vienna – the historical imperial private garden of the Habsburg family, between the Austrian National Library and Palmenhaus.
The aim of the work is to achieve harmony and universal beauty. I value milieus and particular atmospheres carrying it. Sometimes I convey it with a single line or a geometric detail that can evolve into a deeper spatial gesture.
How can built heritage help with modern challenges?
This issue of Maja is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Estonian Association of Interior Architects.
The top-level conference held at the Estonian Academy of Arts during the Tallinn Architecture Biennale dealt with the effect of digitality on architecture, production processes and society.
‘We had completed our design submission for an architectural design competition. The detailed plan determined the building’s shape, roof pitch, roof height, eave height, the choice of building materials, entrance to the lot, the parking space of its residents and the client also provided us with a specific layout for rooms. We thought we had quite a decent building. Then an architecture student appeared and asked: ‘Well, what is the concept of this building...?’’
For Veronika Valk-Siska, architecture neither begins nor ends with a design or a building. Her career in architecture until now can be read as a reflection of an increasingly expansive understanding of what architecture could be.
There is an ongoing discussion how to reach novelty in architecture with computation-driven tools, combining material knowledge with fabrication possibilities. In an attempt to seek for the new spatial qualities emerging and deepening the collaboration between the stakeholders of construction, we discuss it with experimental architect Rachel Armstrong, fiery engineer Manja van de Worp and innovating fabricator Jelle Feringa.
A research project at the Estonian Academy of Arts brings together local timber house manufacturers, digitally skilled architects and engineers to collaborate for more efficient and structurally intelligent architecture.
