The Estonian Centre for Architecture has announced “Edible. Or, the Architecture of Metabolism” as the topic for the next Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2022 (TAB 2022), while the selected head curators are architects Lydia Kallipoliti and Areti Markopoulou in collaboration with co-curator Ivan Sergejev.
TAB 2022 winning proposal “Edible. Or, the Architecture of Metabolism” transfers the metabolism and experiential aptitudes of the natural world to the domain of cities and buildings. The main objective of the proposed curatorial exhibition is to revise and reimagine the logic of circular economy and the ways in which it migrates to the fields of design, architecture and the production of urban environments.
According to the organization, "the curators aim to empower architects, planners and environmental practitioners to develop a proactive stance on architecture’s expressive capacity to perform circular operations, to produce resources – generate food and energy- as well as to decompose itself."
Villem Tomiste, Head of the TAB Curatorial Competition jury, says:
The topic proposes to visualise the realities of circular economy, present its beauty and pain, and reflect on the future based on examples of visions of Tallinn. The curators propose eating what we can grow and figure out what to do with the waste. They are reintroducing the hidden side to our idyllic country life at the exact right moment.
Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer and scholar and an Assistant Professor at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union in New York. Kallipoliti holds a Diploma in Architecture and Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, a SMArchS in design and building technology from MIT, as well as a Master of Arts and a PhD from Princeton University. Kallipoliti is the author of The Architecture of Closed Worlds (2018).
Areti Markopoulou is a Greek PhD architect, researcher and urban technologist working at the intersection between architecture and digital technologies. Markopoulou is the Academic Director at IAAC in Barcelona, and she leads the Advanced Architecture Group, a multidisciplinary research group exploring how design and science can positively impact and transform the present and future of our built environment.
Local co-curator Ivan Sergejev is an architect, Fulbright scholar and expert on cultural rejuvenation, currently serving as the head of sustainable construction at the Republic of Estonia Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.
The TAB 2022 Curatorial Call winning proposal was selected out of 26 submissions. The two second prizes were entitled to projects “Adaptive Reuse” (Kaija-Luisa Kurik, Ewa Effiom, Keiti Kljavin and Martina Schwab) and “Home” (Eerika Alev, Eva Kedelauk, Kristel Niisuke, Kristiina Way, Margus Tamm).
The competition jury consisted of Villem Tomiste (Head of TAB Committee, Head of the Jury), Raul Järg (Director of the Estonian Centre for Architecture), Veronika Valk-Siska (Ministry of Culture's Adviser for Architecture and Design ), Liina Soosaar (assistant to the curator of TAB 2019), Tiit Trummal (architect), Epp Lankots (Senior Researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts), and Johan Tali (architect).
TAB is organised by Estonian Centre for Architecture and the next edition will take place from September to October 2022.
Via TAB
