Concorso di idee in occasione della Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2019 ”New Habitats, New

Beauties”

Tallinn, Estonia

2019

The idea of a beautiful, ecological Kalamaja for the 21st century is what the project wants to promote, represent and demonstrate through a kind of an exemplary habitat. The site is seen as being occupied by one single “podium,” with a green deck, articulated through a series of courtyards (including one around the historic swing-bridge) and a main internal square. On the podium lie an eco-tower and some medium-rise, modern “Kalamaja houses.”

The podium (one story-plus-a-mezzanine high) will contain workshops, labs, community facilities, and retail, especially along Kopli Street. The program mix (including a parking level underground) will serve primarily the new district, but also the surrounding neighborhoods and the city at large. The podium roof is the project “shared eco-system”: an elevated, public, park-like urban habitat.
The eco-tower will also have a mix of programs: dwelling units, vertical “community gardens” and a vertical farm.
The houses follow the typological scheme of the “Kalamaja house,” but with different proportions (four stories plus a ground level) and a modern language. They offer two to four lofts per floor (75 to 150 sqmt), for residential or live-work occupation, appropriate for Kalamaja residents’ lifestyles. Common spaces are at the green deck level (e.g. for bicycle parking) and on the roof (e.g. for saunas), with access to terraces offering vistas over the city and the Baltic Sea.
The construction technology consists of multi-level CLT structural frames over a concrete podium, to leverage the Estonian timber construction tradition and to support the ecological thrust of the project.