COO = co-operation with Nature
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We study nature. Sometimes we call it a city, sometimes a landscape, sometimes water or fog. We walk around, our cameras dangling from our necks and record phenomena.Our observations have led to a number of conclusions. The city and nature are both governed by similar rules. Wild nature offers an environment that is as dense and complex as that of a modern city and vice versa - in the city man acts naturally, just like a wolf in the woods. The bigger the city, the greater the affinity. |
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In a sparse place like Estonia, the architect has time and opportunities to handle large spaces. There is no lack of surface in our cities; rather, we have to cope with situations so that sparseness will acquire quality. This is what landscape architecture is about. There is logic in using the landscape to describe the various intermediate spatial conditions which represent neither the real city nor pure nature. Architecture makes it possible to express spatial frontiers, but landscape means a transgression of borders.
We are interested in how the city interacts with nature. When we envisage an environment containing equal shares of nature and city of equal importance, we face a living (artificial) environment. The complexity of contemporary urban man and extreme naturalness are present side by side. A new density, independent of the number of people or programmes, emerges. If we wish to interfere, work with different phenomena may be even more important than the creation of new objects. Nature is an existing status or a condition in space that has evolved in time. A new component, added to the existing creation, frequently appears to be a negligible and tiny part of the big picture. Defining it as an object of nature, we should not be concerned about creating a grave responsibility for the changes, because the modifications are minimal and emphasise and echo the existing situation, rather than opposing it. This point of departure makes it possible to view everything around us as means. In addition to glass, wood or stone, growing structures with human dimensions, and people themselves, are means. Thus the number of imaginable situations is infinite and there is no fear of anything being imported or of some kind of strategy being implemented. Everything sprouts as it should. There is such a phenomena as super-locality. Designs are the place itself and therefore more dependent on the existing environment than on the vision of their creator. Plants, animals, and hot and cold breezes themselves do enough to create unique products. There is not much more to do, except to avoid spoiling it or dampening it with the wrong noise. |
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Three sample projects1. The garden of the Maarja School The task was not to design or zone or delimit, although that was how it was formally defined. It was to provide a creative playground pregnant with surprise and excitement, without resorting to the products of toy factories. The whole garden is designed using natural means. It is a place where such art is created, which not only depends on the needs of this particular location and where the renewed environment communicates with the user, defining the place and creating new values and qualities in the neighbourhood, but also upholds a constant dialogue with time. The created environment is defined by the existing relief, the carefully selected materials, decisive severance from the street with heavy traffic, a softer and airier barrier at the sides of the yard, the upper part of which is embroidered with a bright and merry serrated wooden rail, the gates that reflect the surroundings and the areas in the lawn that contribute playfulness. |
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2. Subway canopy. Competition designThe design attempts to make use of an ecological interpretation to develop environmentally friendly solutions for technological spaces. The work analyses sites that would be interesting and valuable at 30 different locations in Washington, DC. It manifests the ecological values of the subway as one variety of public transport and makes it visually eloquent, whereas new environmental qualities are offered through its integration into the urban landscape. The landscape on the roof can be perceived from various perspectives (from street level, from the escalator through transparent sections of the roof, and from neighbouring buildings). The unexpected presence of landscape above the street level provides a visually multi-layered way to display nature in the city. The elevated ground entails a metaphor of 'descending underground'. At night the lighted plants designate the entrance to the subway. The subway as an extremely technological facility acquires a new ecological sense in a dialogue with nature, whereby technology and ecology support each other and the urban and the natural cease to be opposites. |
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3. Europan 6, Vienna. Competition project. Second Place Award.The keyword of the design is micro-business. It is a lifestyle that can be practised everywhere and which does not need a large area. The focus is on the environment. The requisite qualities include good access, balance between anonymity and personality, adventurousness and sufficient realism. The designed area is a typical suburb where the adjacent quarters offer different situations and variety, but lack intensity. The existing gap in the perimeter is filled by a porous parking structure. It is a symbiosis of an apartment, an office building and a private home. The resulting mass fills the whole block and is organised as a forest park. The two central elements - the buildings and the trees - have become one. A spatial variety arises out of combinations of similar elements. The result is a moving space with an infinity of views. The unexpected appearance provides the district with its missing identity. The objective is not to overemphasise variety, which should be allowed to take shape on its own. The spatial ensemble permits the emergence of a locally oriented (city) cultural centre. The place may become an unofficial community centre where local people converge for communication and services. The relatively large volatility of the population ensures constant revitalisation of the area. |
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COO designers Katrin Koov Mihkel Tüür Kaire Nõmm Ott Kadarik Hanno Grossschmidt Rene Valner in co-operation with Siiri Vallner |
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| Estonian Art 1/02 (11) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2002 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 | |
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