TAB 2022 Installation Programme Competition invites participants to design an experimental installation in the heart of Tallinn

The Tallinn Architecture Biennale TAB 2022, which takes place from September 07th – October 31st, 2022, has presented its Installation Programme Competition “Slowbuilding”.

The open two-stage competition (first stage submission deadline is April 22nd, 2021 and second stage submissions are due by September 10th, 2021) challenges participants to develop creative designs for a temporary outdoor installation in the heart of Tallinn. Located in front of the Museum of Estonian Architecture, housed in one of Tallinn’s most outstanding examples of industrial architecture, the site consists of a lively pedestrian green area along one of the busiest streets, connecting the two sides of the city: the harbour and the centre.

Through the concept of slowness, the Installation Programme Competition aligns with TAB 2022’s main theme “Edible. Or, the Architecture of Metabolism”. The Slow Food movement emerged as a response to industrialized “fast” food production that recognized the need to preserve traditional and regional styles, enable local food production, limit loss of material diversity, fuel local economies and focus on human nourishment rather than crop yield. As architectural design services and the construction of buildings are increasingly automated, capitalized, globalized, and standardized, the goals of the Slow Food movement are as applicable to the production of space and shelter as they are to food.

The Installation Programme Competition curatorial team (Gwyllim Jahn, Cameron Newnham, Soomeen Hahm, Igor Pantic) explains: “As a counterpoint to the prevailing trends towards high-speed industrialised construction, the competition invites to explore the relationship between digital technology and slowness. Slowness is a useful framework for developing not only alternative means of food production but also design and construction in a world of finite physical resources and exponentially increasing computational capacity.”

The 2022 TAB Installation Programme calls for proposals that take a long, romantic and human centric view towards construction technology, demonstrating designs and processes that extend and expand learning and mastery, traditional craftsmanship and analogue fabrication, repurposing and reuse of local materials, human invention and improvisation, environmental adaptation and responsiveness, wonderment and delight.

As TAB 2022 Head Curators Areti Markopoulou (Spain) and Lydia Kallipoliti (USA) claim: “During the pandemic, the fragility of our production processes and the mobility networks that transport resources and food have urged new forms of localization and the design of circular economies. In parallel, the production of buildings follows predominantly a model of making, which is intensely resource-consuming and contaminating, with the building industry accounted as one of the heaviest waste generators on a global scale. It is in this light that we need to ask more of architecture. We invite participants to envision a more localized and circular approach to construction by rethinking the use of digital and automation technologies combined with creative expression.”

The Jury panel of the Installation Programme Competition is composed of: Roland Snooks (Kokkugia, RMIT — Australia), Kathrin Döfler (dorfundrust, TU Munich – Germany) and Peeter Pere (Peeter Pere Arhitektid — Estonia).

Shortlisted teams will be announced in June 2021, while the final winner will be declared by September 2021.

Prizes include:

1^st prize
€15,000 budget for construction, TAB 2022 Symposium participation, TAB 2022 exhibition participation, published in TAB 2022 book, TAB 2022 PASS

2^nd and 3^rd prize
TAB 2022 exhibition participation, published in TAB 2022 book, TAB 2022 PASS

The winner and all Second Stage participants will be exhibited at the TAB Installation Programme exhibition and published on TAB 2022 website.

For questions and further information about the First Stage, please contact info@tab.ee by April 15^th, 2021. Read the competition material here.

Tallinn Architecture Biennale is organised by the Estonian Centre for Architecture. For more information, please visit TAB 2022 website: www.tab.ee.