The Mustakivi Art Museum serves as a cultural bridge, reestablishing the connection between the Lasnamäe district and Tallinn's city center. The museum, inspired by 'The Atmosphere of Silence,' aims to provide a refuge/ healing environment from the outside world. The definition of silence in this project refers to one's ability to listen inwards, experience inner peacefulness, and relish meaningful moments in the present. Emphasizing natural elements, especially water, as the medium to foster 'silence', the museum features spaces designed for both community gathering and solitary healing. Besides integrating water features, the building design, including façade decision, skylight integration, and the positioning of spaces above or underground, employs different levels of transparency to control the inclusion or exclusion of views, thereby shaping the interior atmosphere and user experience.

Responding to its location in the heart of the Mustakivi subdistrict in Lasnamäe and acknowledging the district's Soviet historical background, the Mustakivi Art Museum, as a new proposal, significantly enhances the existing site condition. Addressing the cultural gap left by the Soviet planning era, the art museum fills the void of cultural amenities in the area. It revitalizes public spaces on site and enriches residents' daily experiences by injecting new vibrancy into the urban fabric.

This project is an attempt to create an urban condenser that will utilize the concept of food, to bring back the lost connection between two residential areas Kalamaja and Pelgulinn, in Tallinn. People become familiar with all the stages of food production, from planting to cooking and from consuming to recycling and reusing the left-over materials. Food is used as a cultural carrier that has the power to tell a story about the history of a country. In my case, a culinary school is incorporated in a public building and a restaurant that through its recipes and materials tells the story of Kalamaja, opens the school to the public and connects the people and their surroundings. I try to zone my design in private classes that is followed up by a mixed-use space were students interact with visitors during the process of learning and cooking. The facade forms a public "skin" that wraps around the main building which extends to bridges that run from Kalamaja to Pelgulinn. The building forms a metaphor for the old bridge that used to connect those areas and keeps the memory alive for the locals. Parts of the floor and a blind wall are composed by bricks found in ruins around the area to give the sense of layered time (old materials and new) on the thresholds found around the building.

The current research is part of a trans-disciplinary discussion on the long-lasting impact of the acoustic environment on cognitive performance, literacy and auditory perception for preschool children, aiming to underlie the increasing necessity to perfectly tune every-day facilities such as schools and work spaces, rather than only performance auditoriums. The main focus is placed on improving speech intelligibility, which is the task of recognizing the message from the din, by evaluating the speech-in-noise perception. The research is based on a promising hypothesis that hybrid devices should allow for low-frequency absorption and high-frequency diffusion which correspond to certain properties of vowels and consonants respectively. Given the transition to the modern aesthetics of the flat wall, compared to the inherent complexity of surface ornamentation in the past, there is a growing demand to provide acoustic solutions that allow for a higher level of complexity towards an improved acoustic environment. The effect of periodicity on a uniform scattered distribution is investigated by examining different geometrical patterns, aiming to convert traditional materials into sound controlling devices. Customized and mass-produced versions are developed,arguing whether a lower level of complexity can meet the same goals if certain low-level rules with high level of self-organization are applied, introducing the idea of simplicity and architectural smartness by preserving the economy of means for the end users. Last but not least, since speech transmission is related to spatial context and surface properties, both the macro-scale and micro-scale are examined.

The study envisions an open-source toolbox for designers for generating design alternatives providing a deeper understanding on how periodicity affects the acoustics of a given space. Since periodic surfaces reduce the complexity of the reflected sound field, designers are encouraged to focus on a-periodic patterns aiming for a non-repetitive sequence via the geometry articulation.Further it suggests the manipulation of certain parameters, such as period,depth-to-width ratio and well width, towards an integrated workflow to achieve an optimized acoustic design. These alternatives can then be used as input fora software similar to Pachyderm Acoustics plug-in for Grasshopper, in order to get a glimpse which of those showcase a high scattering performance within the relevant frequency range. This should for no reason substitute the necessity for a thorough acoustical study as a next step but would however, involve designers more actively in the initial process of form-finding, while gaining awareness of the impact of their design choices on the acoustic environment.

Structuralism represents an architecture that can interact, grow and adapt. The buildings can be recognised by their vivid open structures, composition of small units, and a spatial organisation like a city. As a reaction to CIAM functionalism, the avant-garde members of Team 10 proposed inclusive and social space and a more human form of urbanism and architecture. Starting in 1959, Dutch Structuralism became a very influential movement in the development of architecture in The Netherlands. Now the Structuralist legacy has become heritage. Once the agent of a new era, the pioneering nature of this architecture seems to have faded and it is this building stock that is now in need of renewal. Although some of the Structuralist buildings have become icons, their existence is at stake. Many buildings are facing transformation or demolition, because they do not meet contemporary demands. Despite the design of open structures, being flexible for the future by extrapolation of the structure or adaptation within the building, many of the Structuralist buildings show shortcomings in for example; indoor climate, aesthetic appearance and programmatic possibilities. Recently, the renovation of Aldo van Eyck’s orphanage in Amsterdam has been completed, which once was the inspirational example for many of his contemporaries. Other icons of Structuralism still await a new future, like the Centraal Beheer office in Apeldoorn and the Ministry of Social Affairs in The Hague designed by Herman Hertzberger. Although several buildings have been renovated, there are no standard solutions. We believe that profound knowledge about both the original Structuralist buildings and the argumentation for redesign can help to prepare intervention strategies for upcoming projects. What building characteristics prove to be successful? Are these specific for one building, the oeuvre of one architect or widespread among this generation of buildings? Do renovation concepts reuse or contradict initial design themes? How can necessary renovations do justice to the cultural and architectural values of these icons? Do the icons prove what is promised? Or do we need alternative strategies? This exhibition ‘The Future of Structuralism’ shows our search for what Structuralism is and our assessment of some of its opportunities and shortcomings. But most importantly, it focusses on potential strategies for reuse. The structure of the exhibition is thematic. By focusing on several themes that were important in Structuralism, we aim to link ideology, current examples from practice of transformed Structuralist buildings and design strategies. Through the exhibition and a debate at the opening event, we hope to bring the work from within the chair to a wider audience and add new perspectives to the debate on the movement and its future values. @en