b210

b210 is an architecture office with a think tank approach to everyday spatial challenges. We believe that positive change in the built environment is driven by a smart design process where architectural ideas are as important as methods of developing them. We like to design ways of thinking as much as physical spaces.

Tatari 64, 10134 Tallinn
+37255655330
b210@b210.ee

5th Season Summerschool: Veetee

Floating structrure Veetee is created in Soomaa during a ten day 5th Season Wilderness summerschool in August 2016. Soomaa, with the biggest wetlands in Estonia and a changing water level has been the inspiration to create a structure that inhabits different functions such as a shelter, a fireplace and a sauna – to meet the needs of a traveller or a local, either by land or by a boat. Floating was concieved as a way to adapt to the ever changing conditiones of the Soomaa context, especially the flooding of the 5th season, which happens every year, during two weeks in springtime. Veetee gives a chance to experience the living in wilderness and an opportunity to meet in natural suroundings.

The 5th Season Wilderness Summer School was a deep and intensive examination into the minimum (spatial) necessities for humans in extreme conditions and also a testground for co-creation and construction inspired by wet conditions and locality. As the result of the Summer School, the bottomless bogs and overflowing rivers of Soomaa was offered an island, a steady pause, a solid ground for the wanderer. The workshop was dealing with movement motion – vertical and horizontal.

Two of the three objects have now been opened to the public as part of local forest infrastructure, testing how experimental forest infrastructure could provide for the needs of people living in the area or visiting it. However, one of the structures – the sauna – did not persist the testing, and sunk to the watery depths.

Beautiful Soomaa (in English: swampland), situated in Estonia, consists of large raised bogs, flood-plain grasslands, paludified forests and meandering rivers. The territory of the Soomaa National Park is mostly covered with large mires, separated from each other by the rivers of the Pärnu River basin – Navesti, Halliste, Raudna and Lemmjõgi rivers. Life in Soomaa depends more on climate than anywhere else in Estonia. When vast amounts of water run down the uplands in springs, the rivers of Soomaa cannot contain it all. The water flows over flood-plain grasslands and forests and covers roads, disrupting connection with the rest of the world. In some years, the spring floods have risen by a meter a day for 3–4 days, quickly claiming roads, fields, and on occasion, homes. At the maximum flood level the water-covered area can be 7–8 km in diameter. Steep-sloped, raised bogs stand as islands in the water. The flood has been named the Fifth Season of Soomaa, and Karuskose, Soomaa will be the location of this unique Summer School.

Tutors: b210 architects, Sami Rintala, Pavle Stamenovic, Hannes Praks

Participants: Alden Jõgisuu, Andrea Tamm, Andres Mutis, Berglind Erna Tryggvadóttir, Dan Theman Docherty, Finaly Barge, Gabriel Müller, Gerda Kaasik, Kadri Erdel, Kristiina Veinberg, Laura Müürsepp, Siim Karro, Sisse Falster, Stefano Prevositi, Triin Mänd, Tuva Ina Sofia Björk

Supporters: Ants Viljandi, Dag Reklaam, Eesti Kultuurkapital, Espak Viljandi, Hansaflex, Karula Puit, Liviko, Pärlin, RMK, Ramsi Turvas, Viljandi Kaminakoda, Viljandi Metall, Würth

More info:
https://www.dezeen.com/2016/10/10/floating-wooden-pavilion-veetee-students-estonian-academy-arts-flooding-soomaa-national-park/

Estonian Academy of Arts Interior Design
https://www.ekasisearhitektuur.ee/projects/veetee/

Photos by Aet Ader, Mari Hunt, Birgita Kasperaite, Tõnu Tunnel

All projects

25. septembrist 2013 24. septembrini 2014 aitas OÜ-l b210 põhivara ja rakendustarkvara soetada Ettevõtluse Arendamise Sihtasutuse alustava ettevõtja starditoetuse programm.