Hasta La Ideas

Estonian architects KAMP have completed a timber house outside Tallinn that’s cranked around an oak tree.

One side of the larch-clad house is single-storey to allow longer periods of sunlight to reach the rear deck.

On the other side of the building, where bedrooms are located, the roof slopes up to create a first-floor room beneath the eaves.

Inside the house, plywood wall surfaces are coated with a smooth covering of clay.

Capital city Tallinn was also the location of our last two architecture stories from Estonia, which were a suspended woodland pathway and a theatre made of straw.

Photography is by Terje Ugandi.

Here’s some more information from KAMP:

Private house is situated in the suburban area of Tallinn, capital of Estonia.

The plot is covered with old oak trees, looking almost like little park. One of these oak trees is combined with the house, inserted to the terrace.

The sun direction is from the street, so the house is made 1-storey high to receive sun the backyard also.

House is taking L-shape to bend around the oak tree. In the wing of the house, there is a living area with a sauna, at the other – sleeping.

In the sleeping part, the house rises to 2-storeys high.

The whole house is made of wood – from the construction frame to the larch siding. The higher part of the roof is also covered with larch siding.

In interior there is no gypsum board used. All inner walls are made of plywood and covered with natural clays. Outer walls and roof contain more insulation wool than normally is provided to achieve better insulation and lower heating costs.

In interior there is lot of natural oak wood used – supporting construction of the windows etc. In living room there is 2 roof windows to give more natural light.

The owner of the house is a pilot, so in the car garage, there is airplane parking lot painted.

Total area: 225m2
Project: 2007
Completed: 2011

See also:

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Wooden house by Schlyter/Gezelius	House in Tróia by Jorge Mealha Arquitecto	Potasze House by Neostudio Architekci

Estonian studio Salto Architects have completed a temporary summer theatre in Tallinn made of black spray-painted straw bales.

Visitors climb stairs inside a stepped tunnel to access the Straw Theatre’s rectangular hall.

A system of trusses holds the stacked straw bales in place.

Located on a fortified hilltop, the site used to host regular summer theatre for Soviet Troops but has been abandoned for over twenty years.

The stage will be in place for six months to celebrate Tallinn’s status as a 2011 European Capital of Culture.

Temporary theatres and cinemas have been popular on Dezeen lately – see our earlier stories about a timber theatre elsewhere in Estonia and an English cinema under a motorway flyover.

Photography is by Martin Siplane and Karli Luik.

The following information is provided by the architects:

Location: Skoone Bastion, Tallinn, Estonia
Credits: Maarja Kask, Karli Luik, Ralf Lõoke, Pelle-Sten Viiburg
Project year: 2010-2011

NO99 Straw Theatre is an object standing on the verge of being a pure functional container on one hand, and an art installation on the other.

The Straw Theatre is built on the occasion of Tallinn being the European Capital of Culture, to house a special summer season programme of theatre NO99, lasting from May to October 2011. Thus it is a temporary building, operating for half a year, built for a specific purpose, programme and location.

The Straw Theatre is built in central Tallinn, on top of the former Skoone bastion, one of the best preserved baroque fortifications of Tallinn. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bastion worked as a public garden, and during the Soviet era it was more or less restricted recreational area for the Soviet navy with a wooden summer theatre and a park on top.

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With the summer theatre having burnt down and the Soviet troops gone, for the last 20 years the bastion has remained a closed and neglected spot in the centre of town with real estate controversies and several failed large-scale development plans. In such a context, the Straw Theatre is an attempt to acknowledge and temporarily reactivate the location, test its potential and bring it back to use, doing all this with equally due respect to all historical layers of the site.

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The rectangular main volume of the theatre is situated exactly on the same spot as the navy summer theatre, and one descending flight of stairs of the latter is used as a covered walkway and entrance area to the Straw Theatre. The building is surrounded by various outdoor recreational functions including an oversized chess board, table tennis, swings, and a baking oven, all with a non-commercial and pleasantly low-key feel.

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The dramatic appeal of the building stems from its contextual setting on the site and its black, uncompromisingly mute main volume contrasting with a descending „tail“ with an articulate angular roof. And of course one cannot escape the effect of the material – uncovered straw bales, spraypainted black.

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The Straw Theatre is a unique occasion where straw has been used for a large public building and adjusted to a refined architectural form. For reinforcement purposes, the straw walls have been secured with trusses, which is a type of construction previously unused. As the building is temporary, it has not been insulated as normal straw construction would require but has been kept open to experience the raw tactile qualities of the material and accentuate the symbolic level of the life cycle of this sustainable material.

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See also:

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Summer Theatre by Kadarik Tüür	Folly for a Flyover by Assemble	Mobile performance venue by Various Architects