LOGBOOK Andrea MA2 / january 2017
PLAN FOR THESIS DATA COLLECTION The thesis is positioned inbetween the disiplines of landscape and interior architecture. Therefore it requires collaboration with landscape architects, biologists or biosemiotics. In addition to researching similar philosophies (The Third Generation City, Biourbanism), movements (Ruumiringlus, guerilla gardening) projects (Ruin Academy (2010), Hundertwasser house (1980)), books and essays (“Material Senescence” by Benjamin Busch (2014), “Nature in Ruins” by Tim Edensor (2002), “Umbrohud ja prahitaimed” by Vilma Kuusk (1984), ...) the subject also requires my own mapping, observation in Tallinn to gather ideas and understand the qualities wilderness could add to a neglected space. Mapping, observation and small scale urban interventions are all part of the data collection already in the early stage of thesis development. 1. MAPPING The first stage of data collection consists of mapping the abandoned industrial spaces and main ruderal plants growing in Tallinn centre. The research will be performed in co-operation with biology students from Tallinn University during spring 2017. The ecology department is currently interested in similar topics and eager to collaborate (contact person: Tiiu Koff, ökoloogia keskuse vanemteadur) The second stage focuses on 1-2 case study buildings and the natural processes of those spaces over a fixed period of time. The case study buildings haven’t been finally chosen yet, will be for example the vacant buildings in Rotermanni district (Rotermanni 14), former Vineeri plywood factory area (Tatari 51a), former Volta factory (Tööstuse 47F, 47H), former Polymer factory (Madara 22) etc. 2. OBSERVATION To understand the processes in Estonian climate, seasonalty and weather conditions in case study buildings observations will be held. The gathered information will be useful for planning the final project. My observations have shown that natural processes in the buildings start to show roughly 5-20 years after the abandonment, on stone or concrete. Therefore I have chosen to work mainly with industral Soviet ruins. 3. URBAN INTERVENTION Based on the information gathered a series of small scale urban interventions will be planned. These interventions will hopefully establish substance for the final project. 4. MATERIAL TESTS Besides working with industrial ruins I am also trying to develop a biodegradable growing material – a comination of clay, hydrogel, soil, seeds – in collaboratoion with biotechnologist Henri Ingelman. The material tests are for the concept of a biodegradable building.
Based on the data collection, project concept will be developed
Action plan JANUARY Material tests with Henri Ingelman Visiting industrial ruins with Tiiu Koff Choosing a case study building Background research FEBRUARY Material tests Developing the thesis project concept Background research MARCH Field work with biology students starts Mapping the plants and growth processes in vacant buildings Concept development APRIL Framing - the final thesis project Small scale interventions Start of intensive thesis writing
material tests Kokku 18 katsetust: - Savi 10% / 15% / 20% - Hüdrogeel 5% / 10% / 20% - Mullasort 1 (külvimuld) / 2 (must muld) Mulda ülejäänud mahus - Kokku segatud kõik seemnesordid - Lisatud Substral special start formula vedelikku (1/50 veega) Kontrollkatsed, kokku 6: - Muld 1 ilma millegita / 5% hüdrogeeliga / 15% saviga Muld 2 ilma millegita / 5% hüdrogeeliga / 15% saviga - kõik seemnesordid - substral formula
10.01.2017
18.01.2017 külvatud: 10.01.2017 kastetud: 10.01, 13.01, 18.01 (topsid, millel on ainult number, ei kastetud 13.01)
case study Volta tehas tööstuse 47F Volta Detailplaneering: https://tpr.tallinn.ee/DetailPlanning/Details/ DP016580#tab32 https://tpr.tallinn.ee/MapOfPlannings/Linnaosa/100276 https://www.volta.ee/kinnistute/hooned.html Volta 47B loftid enne ehitust. Fotod: Tõnu Tunnel https://www.dropbox.com/ sh/8uxoon16v62i26q/AABf-
case study
Rotermanni 6 Leivatehas
https://xgis.maaamet.ee/maps/XGis?app_id=UU82A&user_id=at&LANG=1&WIDTH=1620&HEIGHT=950&zlevel=11,543006.75878907,6589220.9091797
Meeting with veronika valk
OTSUSTA: Kas ma tahan teha midagi praktilist? - Kuidas põhjendan tegevuse vajalikkust? Kas ma tegelen mõttemänguga? Kas eesmärk on saavutada ruum mis on õppinud loodusest? (viisid, kuidas sinna jõuda on erinevad) “lagunemine” - miks ja kuidas seda sõna kasutan? vali konkreetne asukoht EDASI, tee näiteks nii: vali 3 case studyt: 1. lammutine = park 2. kultuuriväärtuslik vana tööstushoone / kirik (nende teema on problemaatiline nkn) = uus funktsioon 3. tööstushoone (millel pole kultuurilist väärtust) = väheväärtuslik uus arendus, mis see elanikkonnale annab? (nt Lasna, Mustamäe) NB! Enamik lagunevatest hoonetest pole väärtuslikud, pigem pöörata tähelepanu kultuuriväärtusega hoonetele industriaalhoonete ebatervislikkus Eesti kontekstis pole tihedalt asustatud kohti, kui siis ainult vanalinn toetu tehtud töödele (bioarhitektuur, lammutamine, õpilaste tööd)
research
“RECORDED CITY. CO-CREATING URBAN FUTURES” by Thomas Ermacora, Lucy Bullivant (Veronika Valk soovitus)
BUILDING OPERATING SYSTEMS FOR SELF-ORGANISATION (p 37) - “Self-organising - in many ways inhereted from hyper-liberal, subversive, or “alterntive” ways of thinking about society largely originating from the wide-ranging alternative groups of the 1960s. and markedly deiverging from the “creative” partipation in consumer culture - is reinforced (tugevdatud) by contemporary DIY movements. The past few years have seen regained interest in notions of co-housing and shared agricultural plots, for example, both traditions with long histories.” - “Discussing the origins of the DIY movements proliferating today is complex. To generalise somewhat, DIY activities are merging from two particular places in the social spectrum.” - “DIY culture has many facets to it. It is not just about informal, self-managed solutions, or affordable, anti-anodyne off-the-shelf solutions or imposed answers but also about twinkering and hacking.“ - “DIY relates to modern material dignity as well as to the needs of personalisation and customation.”
PLACEMAKING RECORDING: THE ART OF PARTICIPATORY PLACEMAKING (p 70) - involving residents, professionals+non-professionals - long-term impacts, but slower development process - participatory practice, but managinggroup dynamics is difficult
civic initiative planning kodanikualgatusel linnade ehitamine
“KÕIGE KESTLIKUM ON PANUSTADA OLEMASOLEVATESSE MAJADESSE” by Triin Talk
Sel aastal on riigikontroll koostanud tühjade majade kohta kaks olulist auditit, kus lühidalt öeldakse järgmist: ohtlikke hooneid on palju ja omavalitsused ei jõua nendega tegeleda,1 omavalitsustel endil on liiga palju maju ja üha enam jääb neid pärast haldusreformi üle.2 Rohelised ehitised Olemasolevad hooned on ressurss, mille jätkuv ja taaskasutamine on igati säästlik, sest kui hoone ehitamisse on juba kord paigutatud tonnide kaupa ehitusmaterjali, on selle renoveerimine ja edasi kasutamine üldjuhul väiksema ökoloogilise jalajäljega tegevus kui uue maja ehitamine, isegi kui uus on energiasäästlikum.6 „Kõige rohelisem on ehitis, mis on juba ehitatud,“7 on teadmine, milleni on jõutud, arvestades peale küttekulude ka ehitistesse kuluvate materjalide olelusringi. 500 aastat sama maja kasutada, seda remontida ja ajakohastada on kokkuvõttes säästlikum kui iga 50 aasta järel lammutada ja uuesti ehitada. Üleriigilise planeeringu „Eesti 2030+“ järgi peaks eesmärk olema linnade sisestruktuuri tihendamine. Kultuuripärandi hoidmise huvist lähtuvalt saab teraviku veel täpsemalt suunata vanalinnadesse ja miljööväärtuslikele aladele. Hoonete lammutamise, aga mitte korrastamise toetamisega innustame olemasolevate ehitiste kui ressursi raiskamist. Peale ohtlike ja tühjade majade teema on riigikontroll auditeerinud hiljuti ka Riigi Kinnisvara Aktsiaseltsi tegevust, mis pole toonud oodatud optimeerimist kinnisvara haldamises.10 Kuni RKAS toimib äriühinguna, mille eesmärk on eelkõige tulu teenimine, ei saagi esiplaanil olla keskkonnasäästlikkus, sh olemasoleva hoonestuse võimalikult ökonoomne ärakasutamine ja linnakeskuste tihendamine. Muudatused RKASi toimimises on tõenäoliselt tulekul.11 Riigi kinnisvaraalase tegevuse uuesti mõtestamisel ei saa unustada asjaolu, et pea kõik Eesti linnad on väheneva rahvastikuga ja enam-vähem igal pool peale Tallinna ja selle lähivaldade on maju liiga palju ning nende potentsiaal kasutamata. http://www.sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/arhitektuur/koige-kestlikum-on-panustada-olemasolevatesse-majadesse/
why restaurate ruins
LOGBOOK Andrea MA2 / february 2017
concept development 1
growth/decay inside new structure around (new exterior/restauration, old life inside)
growth/decay outside new structure inside (old building, new interior)
concept development 2
ruin
ruin + nature
restaurated
ruin + nature + new element
restaurated + new quality
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT 3
- POP-UP NATURE, mobile urban wilderness. Function: network of senses of nature
- DESIGNED RUIN, built to decay on. Function: temporary housing on a) on top of existing ruins b) empty lots (jäätmaa), - CITY PAUSES green escape spaces i n 3 minute walk away. human ökodukt - NET-LIKE MATERIAL that fixes the broken parts of abandoned buildings and starts growing later - GROWING RUBICS CUBE - new possibilities appear when turning the modules - FOREST BATHING
MAPPING TALLINN VACANT BUILDINGS scale material condition
STONE HOUSES
OLD TOWN
WOODEN HOUSES
Linnahall Patarei Buildings in Telliskivi
Aida 9 Aida 10 (11) Kooli 4
Tondi kasarmud (Tondi 53) Vana-Lõuna 10 Volta tehas (Tööstuse 47F) Masina 2
Uus tn 9 Sauna 1 (Helios) Tolli 5 Pikk 55 Toom-Rüütli 8 Suur-Karja 12
Lennuki 26 Lennuki 28 Luise 25 Luise 17 Narva mnt 80 Poska 41 Koidu 26a Lubja 5 Mardi 10 Tatari 36 Juhkentali 44
Pärnu mnt 59 Pärnu mnt 44 Wismari 13 Mere pst 4 Tatari 51a Rotermanni 12, 14 Rotermanni 6 Nafta 12 Nafta 16 Kauba 10, 12 Võrgu 8
Telliskivi veetorn Garages in dif locations
PARKING LOTS Maakri 34 Lennuki 24 Tartu mnt 15 Tartu mnt 1 Kaupmehe 7 Pärnu mnt 24 Tuukri tn 2 ...
WORKSHOP with MARCO CASAGRANDE Urban Acupunctrue (9.02.2017) 1st gen: city is born in nature 2st gen: the industrial city independent from nature 3rd gen: ruin of an industrial city Nature can read architecture very easily: it takes the manmade structure and starts living on it. working against it would be a waste of energy. Step by step a vacant building becomes a ruin. What happens when a person comes back to the nature and starts sharing the space with nature?
TASK: Site: Tallinn - What are the energy layers inside Tallinn? - What is the local knowledge / real top soil of Tallinn? - What keeps the city alive? What is the power? - Where this power can live? Map the acupuncture points Design one needle that would start changing the city
Urban Acupunctrue (9.02.2017)
CITY_PAUSES
CITY_PAUSES City pauses is a network of urban wilderness in a densliy built area. Tallinn was built as a Hansa town, as a harbour representing connection, trading, nomad lifestyle. The ground it was built on, Estonian nature, for me represents lots of (personal) space, wilderness, greenery, sea, lakes, bogs‌ Old Town of Tallinn is by its nature a total opposite this spaciousness. City pauses aims to recreate those qualities in modern Tallinn. All the city-pauses are located densly built but small Old Town of Tallinn. The needles create a mid-usage for vacant buildings and underused lots. Together the needles for a network of city pauses, each with different quality, creating a composition of urban wilderness qualities (sun, air/wind, rain, forrest sounds etc).
Andrea Tamm 2017
Urban Acupunctrue (9.02.2017)
WATER
GREENERY
WATER The chosen natural elements for each location could create ground for unusual experiences / activities in lurban context.
GREENERY
Urban Acupunctrue (9.02.2017)
summer
characteristics of Estonian weather: seasonality offers possibilities for using the vacant space during winter
winter
SEASONALITY, SNOW
THE TROUBLE WITH WILDERNESS; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature by William Cronon https://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/rm240/cronin.pdf The more one knows of its peculiar history, the more one real- izes that wilderness is not quite what it seems. Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation-indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very par- ticular moments in human history. lk1 Go back 250 years in American and European history, and you do not find nearly so many people wandering around remote corners of the planet looking for what today we would call “the wilderness experience.” As late as the eighteenth century, the most common usage of the word “wilderness” in the English language referred to landscapes that generally carried adjectives far different from the ones they attract today. To be a wilderness then was to be “deserted,” “sav- age, ” “desolate,” “ barren”-in short, a “waste,” the word’s nearest syn- onym. Its connotations were anything but positive, and the emotion one was most likely to feel in its presence was “bewilderment”-or terror.
history of wilderness
... (näited kristlusest) Wilderness, in short, was a place to which one came only against one’s will, and always in fear and trembling. Whatever value it might have arose solely from the possibility that it might be “reclaimed” and turned toward human ends-planted as a garden, say, or a city upon a hill.’ In its raw state, it had little or nothing to offer civilized men and women. But by the end of the nineteenth century, all this had changed. The waste- lands that had once seemed worthless had for some people come to seem almost beyond price. Wilder- ness had once been the antithesis of all that was orderly and good-it had been the darkness, one might say, on the far side of the garden wall-and yet now it was frequently likened to Eden itself. (näited Ameerikast) ... (looduskaitse tegevuse algus USAs, national parks) Although wilderness may today seem to be just one environmental concern among many, it in fact serves as rhe foundation for a long list of other such concerns that on their face seem quite remote from it. That is why its influ- ence is so pervasive and, potentially, so insidious. To gain such remarkable influence, the concept of wilderness had to become loaded with some of the deepest core values of the culture that cre- ated and idealized it: it had to become sacred. This possibility had been present in wilderness even in the days when it had been a place of spiritual danger and moral temptation.
write an essay: From wilderness to ruins to wilderness 1. history of wilderness 2. building on top of nature (1st gen city) 3. industrial city (2nd gen) 4. ruins (3rd gen) 5. overgrowing
THE TROUBLE WITH WILDERNESS By the eighteenth century this sense of the wilderness as a landscape where the supernatural lay just beneath the surface was expressed in the doctrine of the sublime. In the theories of Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, William Gilpin, and others, sublime landscapes were those rare places on earth where one had more chance than elsewhere to glimpse the face of God. Romantics had a clear notion of where one could be most sure of having this experience. Although God might, of course, choose to show Himself anywhere, He would most often be found in those vast, powerful landscapes where one could not help feeling insignificant and being reminded of one’s own mortality. Where were these sublime places? The eighteenth-century catalog of their locations feels very familiar, for we still see and value landscapes as it taught us to do. God was on the mountaintop, in the chasm, in the waterfall, in the thundercloud, in the rainbow, in the sunset. Among the best proofs that one had entered a sublime landscape was the emotion it evoked. For the early romantic writers and artists who first began to celebrate it, the sublime was far from being a pleasurable experience. ...(luule näide)...The symbols he detected in this wilderness landscape were more supernatural than natural, and they inspired more awe and dismay than joy or pleasure. His words took the physical mountain on which he stood and transmuted it into an icon of the sublime: a symbol of God’s presence on earth. As more and more tourists sought out the wilderness as a spectacle to be looked at and enjoyed for its great beauty, the sublime in effect became domesticated. The wilderness was still sacred, but the religious sentiments it evoked were more those of a pleasant parish church than those of a grand cathedral or a harsh desert retreat. But the romantic sublime was not the only cultural movement that helped transform wilderness into a sacred American icon during the nineteenth cen- tury. No less important was the powerful romantic attraction of primitiv- ism, dating back at least to Rousseau-the belief that the best antidote to the ills of an overly refined and civilized modern world was a return to simpler, more primitive living. ... the decades following the Civil War saw more and more of the nation’s wealthiest citizens seeking out wilderness for themselves. Wilderness suddenly emerged as the landscape of choice for elite tourists, who brought with them strikingly urban ideas of the countryside through which they traveled. For them, wild land was not a site for productive labor and not a permanent home; rather, it was a place of recreation. One went to the wilderness not as a producer but as a consumer. wilderness - a highly attractive natural alternative to the ugly artificiality of modern civilization. The irony, of course, was that in the process wilderness came to reflect the very civilization its devotees sought to escape. Ever since the nineteenth century, celebrating wilderness has been an activity mainly for well- to-do city folks. Wilderness is the natural, unfallen antithesis of an unnatural civilization that has lost its soul. It is a place of freedom in which we can recover the true selves we have lost to the corrupting influences of our artificial lives. Most of all, it is the ultimate landscape of authenticity.
history of wilderness
THE TROUBLE WITH WILDERNESS But the trouble with wilderness is that it quietly expresses and reproduces the very values its devotees seek to reject. The flight from history that is very nearly the core of wilderness represents the false hope of an escape from responsibility, the illusion that we can somehow wipe clean the slate of our past and return to the tabula rasa that supposedly existed before we began to leave our marks on the world. This, then, is the central paradox: wilderness embodies a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside the natural. If we allow ourselves to believe that nature, to be true, must also be wild, then our very presence in nature represents its fall. The place where we are is the place where nature is not. To the extent that we celebrate wilderness as the measure with which we judge civilization, we reproduce the dualism that sets humanity and nature at opposite poles. We thereby leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical, sustainable, honorable human place in nature might actually look like By imagining that our true home is in rhe wilderness, we forgive ourselves the homes we actually inhabit. We live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness. It is nor the things we label as wilderness that are the problem (for nonhuman nature and large tracts of the natural world do deserve protection) but rather what we ourselves mean when we use that label. Defenders of biological diversity, for instance, although sometimes appealing to more utilitarian concerns, often point to “untouched” ecosystems as the best and richest repositories of the undiscovered species we must certainly try to protect. Although at first blush an apparently more “scientific” concept than wilderness, biological diversity invokes many of the same sacred values, which is why organizations like the Nature Conservancy have been so quick to employ it as an alternative to the seemingly fuzzier and more problematic concept of wilderness. The classic example is the tropical rain forest, which since the 1970s has become the most powerful modern icon of unfallen, sacred land-a veritable Garden of Eden-for many Americans and Europeans. And yet protecting the rain forest in the eyes of First World environmentalists all too often means pro- tecting it from the people who live there. Those who seek to preserve such “wilderness” from the activities of native peoples run the risk of reproducing the same tragedy-being forceably removed from an ancient home--that befell American Indians. Idealizing a distant wilderness too often means nor idealizing the environment in which we actually live in. By teaching us to fetishize sublime places and wide open country, these ways of thinking about wilderness encourage us to adopt too higha standard for what counts as “natural.”
how we seee wilderness
THE TROUBLE WITH WILDERNESS 0n the one hand, one of my own most important environmental ethics is that people should always to be conscious that they are part of the natural world, inextricably tied to the ecological systems that sustain their lives. 0n the other hand, I also think it no less crucial for us to recognize and honor nonhuman nature as a world we did nor create, a world with its own independent, nonhuman reasons for being as it is. The autonomy of nonhuman nature seems to me a� indispensable corrective to human arrogance. If the core problem of wilderness is that it distances us too much from the very things it teaches us to value, then the question we must ask is what it can tell us about home, the place where we actually live. How can we take the positive values we associate with wilderness and bring them closer to home? Wilderness is the place where, symbolically at least, we try to withhold our power to dominate.
how to preserve wild nature
When we visit a wilderness area, we find ourselves surrounded by plants and animals and physical landscapes whose otherness compels our attention. In forcing us to acknowledge that they are not of our making, that they have little or no need of our continued existence, they recall for us a creation far greater than our own. Wilderness gets us into trouble only if we imagine that this experience of wonder and otherness is limited to the remote corners of the planet, or that it somehow depends on pristine landscapes we ourselves do not inhabit. Nothing could be more misleading. The tree in the garden is in reality no less other, no less worthy of our wonder and respect, than the tree in an ancient forest. If wilderness can do this-if it can help us perceive and respect a nature we had forgotten to recognize as natural-then it will become part of the solution to cur environmental dilemmas rather than part of the problem. This will only happen, however, if we abandon the dualism that sees the free in the garden as artificial-completely fallen and unnatural-and the tree in the wilderness as natural-completely pristine and wild. We are responsible for both, even though we can claim credit for neither. We need to embrace the full continuum of a natural landscape that is also cul-tural, in which the city and the wild both have their proper place. If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world-not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both.
CRITICS
MIND MAP 14.02.17
collapsing, illegal activities etc DANGERS
POSSIBILITIES
blocking parts of dangerous buildings, opening up others NATURE = RESTRICTION
NATURE “FIXING” RUINS Decay & growth 2in1
the laws, ownerships, financial issues etc WHY BUILDINGS BECOME RUINS? ARTIFICIAL SPACE
VACANT BUILDINGS
RUINS
INTERMEDIATE USE* *What is temporary / intermediate ?
time of decay TIMEFRAME time of growth
ruins are temporary*: decay / restauration CONSTANT CHANGE nature overgrowing, breaking the built
RUIN + PLANTS overgrowing happens anyway
NEW QUALITY
NATURAL SPACE
URBAN NATURE city parks pop-up parks (plants in pots, Vabaduse sq)
WILDERNESS IN URBAN CONTEXT
NEW PARK TYPO network of ruins. each space offers dif experience / feeling (sound, light, smell etc). together locations form a sense of wilderness in city (forest bathing in city)
NATURE AS AN ARCHITECT nature grows over, ruin breaks down
Growing building material (seeded glay , gel, net)
wasteland / ruin is demolished by nature
A PRODUCT majavamm in package
?
pregrown plants with strong roots reorganzing the built space
critique
CURATING NATURE the possibilities of mobile/pop-up nature spatial concept
NEW BIODEGRADABLE HOUSES inspired by natural processes, built to decay
POP-UP NATURE demolishing the unused building TEMPORARY HOUSING a) on top of existing ruins b) on empty lots
new building, new life cicle
THE DESIGN PROPOSAL CONCEPT
the design proposal focuses on : - natural processeshappening in ruins already, - subnature and ruderal plants - mimicing the growth/decay process - emphazising the change and seasonality - emphazising the temporarity of a abandoned space - creating a intermeniate use for a ruin
building defined place
abandoned building unused non-place / space
overgrown building new (more natural) place
NEW QUALITIES?
problematic ruin
building
abandoned building
design proposal
overgrown and decaying building
ADDING A new element (that follows the same processes)
PROCESS
new changing situation
SYMBIOSIS
problematic ruin
RUIN unused, needs conserving, partly dangerous
part that needs conserving dangerous area (stones falling)
design proposal
new changing situation
SYMBIOSIS biodegradable / growing element is added. this element also works as a structural support and depends on the ruin
support
PROCESS: DECAY & GROWTH 2 in1 new element decays (depending on the period of vacancy), overgrowns, imitates the same processes that are happening in ruin
solid material (protects from falling stones) growing material
growing material, grown together with the ruin
problematic ruin
design proposal
dangerous area (decaying)
new changing situation
growth and decay 2 in 1
new element works as: - protection - conservator
natural layer (growth) - shelter / any other function ??
growing blocks
clay 40% + hydrogel 8g + soil + seeds + wooden fibre
concept: modular blocks connected by roots
LOGBOOK Andrea MA2 / march 2017
CONCEPT - designed demolition - planned intervention + plants demolishing the structure - intermediate use before demolishion or reconstruction - project is aiming for natural processes not static image - subnature, local plants - wild urban nature - demolition project creates a park not parking