My graduation project explores the relationship between memories, perception, and Soviet-era architecture. The project site is the former "Turist" foreign currency shop in Tallinn, built for the 1980 Summer Olympics. As a Soviet-era building aimed at those with foreign currency, it symbolizes the inequalities of the Soviet regime.
Despite years of trials, the government has failed to secure heritage protection for the building. An architectural competition plans to replace it with a high-rise, which would cause a significant loss to architectural heritage and additionally intensify Tallinn’s existing issue of constructing without regard for urban context and human scale.

An alternative to the current demolition plan is proposed - preserving and transforming the Turist shop while honouring the past, present, and future. Memories and perception in architecture serve as a foundation for reimagining the space and for guiding the design proposal, transforming the former shop into an inviting community centre. The form, scale, proportions, materialization and detailing of the new extension contrast that of the communist monument, maintaining a balance that avoids overshadowing it. This is achieved through a composition characterized by rhythm, simplicity and a strategic interplay between closeness and openness. An atrium between the two buildings is the heart of the project, where the past and the present exist together.

The Methods of Analysis and Imagination graduation studio 2023-2024 focuses on A Matter of Scale, in the North-eastern European city of Tallinn. As we were free to synthesize an in-depth site-analysis of the city with our own fascinations, I decided on exploring the Estonian nightlife. I discovered that club culture was not embraced by the city’s regulations, but quite the opposite: it was pushed back. This inspired me to design a nightclub on a vacant industrial site, of which plenty is to be found in Tallinn. My choice fell upon the Balti Manufactory Quarter, a former cotton factory with its iconic chimney and monumental masonry. It’s industrial lay-out is on its way to be taken over by nature, and first plans to regenerate the area with conventional generic housing typologies are explored. My stance in this however, is to convert the site into a cultural center for the neighborhood. By clearly prioritizing culture over a strict residential use, I give back space to the sub-cultural community who loses their spaces to gentrified neighborhoods. Furthermore, by being a cultural center, the Quarter will become a catalyst for new forms of urban cultural development: in which living, working, and leisure coexist. The Quarter is fit to accommodate this, as it is imbedded in the urban fabric and well connected to Tallinn’s infrastructure. Other than that, there is enough distance between the complex and its surrounding residential neighborhood for nightlife to flourish, whilst the plot can function as a city park during the day. The nightclub is located in the former boiler room, a separate complex next to the old factory building. And just how the boiler room used to fuel the cotton factory, my nightclub will become the nocturnal heart of the new center for culture, creation, and living.

Tallinn’s largest district Lasnamäe is based on a specific ideology, leaving it after Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union incapable of adapting to new societal developments. Today, Lasnamäe is still mainly composed of monotonous Soviet-modernist housing slabs and lacks public interior spaces.
Opposing this situation, the building takes occurring uncertainties strategically into account and embraces them to design for unforeseeable functions, needs, actors and changes in society; and intertwines different uses and user groups, acting as an initiator for citizen-driven events and projects.
To achieve this, the design strategy embraces the contrast between indeterminacy and determinacy, creating spaces that can be used freely, combined with structures that act supportive in a structural, functional, spatial and organisational way. The indetermined space leaves things open and understands the building as “pre-used”, being interpretable by its users with the potential to develop over time. The determined parts make the building site-specific, quote Tallinn’s built history and make it a characteristic artefact.

Reshaping the shopping mall into a public space - Over the last century, shopping has been transformed into an urban institution through the shopping mall. Originally designed as a meeting place for the population, it was meant to serve as a multipurpose town center that would enhance the human network of activity in the suburbs, safe from the seasons. However, since its conception, retail spaces have taken precedence over the consumer itself and their use as a ‘public space’. However, with the rise of e-commerce, the typical mall design favoring retail is struggling to compete, resulting in closures and abandonment. It is at this crossroads, that this project reconsiders the structure of the mall as a public space that sets the individual above retail and seeks to answer, ‘How the architecture of consumerism can be reshaped to create public space?’.

This project takes the Nautica Keskus mall by the ferry terminal in Tallinn, Estonia, and deconstructs
the consumerist design factors to reach its underlying presence as a public space. The existing
building is given a new rooting in its surroundings by fragmenting the mass and softening its edges.
Taking precedence from the closure of malls and their abandonment, nature is allowed to take over
and revitalize its interior. The building is transformed into an urban park creating natural wildness in an otherwise organized typology. Rather than destroying the building, a heritage approach is taken, seeing malls as a remnant of their time. Three new functions are specified in the building: public functions (library, workshop, and theater), greenhouses and open nature reflecting the Estonian landscape. The building is reused to show the varying states of possible decay, either through complete reuse of the existing, structural reuse only, or natural decay of the structure.

The project aims to ally with the Rotermann District in re-using parts of existing built mass to create recognizable architecture of a coherent style, contrasting in the way it treats the ruins. Its socio-urban effort is based on the understanding of what is necessary to balance out the dominant paradigm of economic growth in the quarter: Spaces for cultural stimulation that spark curiosity, foster a sense of shared responsibility, and engage locals and visitors. Complementary to the effects of mallification, Unfinishing Spaces aims to bind the fragments of space which have fallen out of time (or use) back into the fabric of contemporary architecture.

This graduation project for the studio "A Matter of Scale" at the Technical University of Delft addresses an architectural intervention in Tallinn's coastal zone, focusing on the ruins of the Pirita Convent. Established by St. Bridget’s Rule merchants, the Gothic-style convent operated from 1407 to 1575 before being destroyed. Today, it serves as a tourist site and event venue, necessitating temporary structures for functionality. This project proposes a sensitive, year-round architectural intervention that respects the historical elements while introducing a community music school and event space.

Four key themes guided the design process: historical connection, spatial organisation, sensory experience, and local (natural) materials. Historical research informed the layout, proportions, and functions of new additions, preserving the convent's essence while incorporating contemporary elements. Spatial organisation considered visitor flow and accessibility, ensuring logical routing and wheelchair access. Sensory experience focused on sight, sound, and touch, maintaining the visual prominence of the ruins, optimizing acoustics for the music school, and preserving the limestone's texture. Local natural materials were prioritized to minimize environmental impact and support the local economy, while also following the original St. Bridget Rules.

The project illustrates integrating ruins with new structures, balancing preservation and modern use, and offers a practical example for similar historical sites. By engaging with Tallinn's community and stakeholders, this design aims to enhance the cultural and functional value of the Pirita Convent, presenting a vision for its potential as a year-round public space.

This project covers the revitalization of the former Volta Factory in Tallinn Estonia. This abandoned site or sleeping beauty holds lots of opportunity on many different local layers of the Kalamaja. Social, cultural, urban and many more detailed aspects are taken into account to create a Cultural Center with high quality leisure spaces for all kinds of activities. Walls are well over a meter thick and ten meters high. Two seventy meters long halls make up for a barrier that will be opened up in a Gordon Matta Clark fashion. Preserving the partition wall inside and connecting the two halls as well as the newly developed neighborhood and Plaza on one side and the waste land that will be turned into a community and botanical garden on the other side. The partition wall serves as a divider that pushes the users into a particular direction with the the help of a multifunctional circulation area. These areas are referred to as stress, passages and boulevards that form the infrastructure of the small city inside the building. One side houses sports and library program in combination with offices, study spaces and a restaurant. The other side will house a multifunctional event hall that looks out over the main street and the Bay of Tallinn. This part also houses a boxed-in theater and lounges. Both halls have been studied thoroughly and functions have been placed accordingly. The beauty of the repetitive limestone facade with its beautiful arched windows is preserved on both the inside and outside. Subtle interventions and detailing have made the building more future proof and accessible on many layers in the local and urban landscape.

Sealine is an ambitious architectural proposal in the coastal zone of Tallinn, Estonia. The design for a sailing school on the peninsula between the Linnahall and the Ferry Terminal establishes the connection between sea, city, nature (the coastal landscape) and sky. This connection is made in several ways, and has different forms: the buildings have direct contact with the water, are firmly anchored in the land, and there is a pavilion embraced by the sky. In addition, the design blends seamlessly with the existing urban structure.
The base of the sailing school is an elongated low volume (containing the boat storage, changing rooms and classroom) with a kink halfway up the volume and a nod toward the harbor. This base connects the Logi Street to the sea through the publicly accessible roof with wide stairs. On the east side, the volume is recessed into the mountainside and blends harmoniously into it; on the west side, the basement encloses a plaza with the boat docks and the façade rhythm mirrors the horizontally articulated Linnahall, but on its own smaller scale.
Halfway up the volume, is placed a pavilion that manifests itself strikingly in the coastal silhouette; its directional play and detailing make it appear to be detached from the ground. It is intended for the sailing school but can also function independently as an entertainment facility.
Both volumes are executed in concrete (sturdy in the sea climate sea) and wood (soft and human-sized, a local building material).
The design is a powerful, concrete example of how architecture, nature and human activities can reinforce each other.