VARES opened its doors on Saturday, March 30, and invites everyone to participate in the diverse programme.
Schedule:
14:00 Opening of Laura Pint’s exhibition
15:00 Presentation of Anni Saviaro’s research on shrinking cities
16:00 Opinion journey on climate-sustainable construction and urban planning
Laura Pint arrived at VARES in the beginning of March. Besides her main work in an architectural office, she likes to work with her hands and experiment with different media. Be it building furniture, sewing or leather work. Laura will present her soft inventions at 14:00.
Laura’s goal during the residency is to delve into unconventional furniture design and explore alternative spatial configurations, blurring boundaries and redefining the relationship between the space and its users. She is inspired by the idea of finding ways to make everyday standardized space more interesting, exciting and flexible. During the work, she plans to experiment with different forms, materials and construction methods. The goal is to use material waste and offcuts from furniture production and through it advocating for more sustainable ways of production. The final result of the residency is a piece of furniture based on the month-long study. Laura aims for the piece to not only reflect the results of her research, but also to be a practical example of how architecture and furniture design can jointly contribute to an environmentally friendly and creatively thinking future.
Anni Saviaro is a Finnish architect who came to VARES to work on her PhD dissertation. Her research focuses on urban planning in a shrinking context, its justification, and its connection to growth. Anni will hold a presentation about the planning of shrinking cities at 15:00.
Anni’s interest and focus in her research lies in urban planning in a shrinking context, its justification, and its connection to growth. The purpose of her research is to increase understanding of urban planning in a shrinking context, through which it is possible to make planning processes more democratic and to create tools for finding appropriate planning goals and approaches in a shrinking context. The research emphasizes the need for urban planning that considers different growth contexts, where different starting points of cities and municipalities are identified. Valga is an interesting case study for her research.
At 16–18, we will be conducting an open-for-all “opinion journey” on the topic of environmentally friendly building and urban planning. Join us in the envisioning and discussing – your ideas will influence the state’s development strategies, the coming climate law, and the state budget.
We will collectively brainstorm solutions for how the state, locan governments and communities might best help in the renovating Estonian buildings and boosting the circular and ecological use of building materials. Think about what kind of house you live in right now; how has it been built and out of what; what kind of house would you ideally like to live in? If you needed to renovate, whose help and for what would you need? Do you know of any good examples from other countries on how people were encouraged to renovate their houses?
The “opinion journey” is an inclusion format and open call initiated by the Ministry of Climate and the State of Estonia Government Office. It invites people to speak up on topics and offer proposals in areas that the coming climate law might influence. The results of the discussion will be taken into account in creating and reinforcing the climate law and state development strategies. The discussion will be moderated by Maria Muuk; the currently planned language is Estonian, but we will be flexible to host the discussion in English if necessary.
