Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2017 has announced TAB 2017 Urban Installation Programme open call, offering emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and build an experimental wooden folly in the heart of Tallinn. The competition has two stages - digital portfolios can be submitted for the first competition stage until October 15th 2016.

The international open two-stage competition is challenging participants to develop creative designs for a temporary outdoor installation, making innovative use of the fabrication capacities with the Estonian wooden house manufacturers. The aim is to promote synergy between emerging designers and industry.

Curators of the TAB 2017 Installation Programme, architects Sille Pihlak and Siim Tuksam, founder and director of PART, say the open call is driven by TAB 2017 main topic of bio-technology in architecture and urban design.

''By the end of the competition, we are looking for a visionary model using principles of biological self-organization, computational material logic and the embodied algorithms of the future of bio-city for the TAB Installation Programme. 

The convergence of biotechnology and IT, applied to landscape and urban design is considered by many pioneers as one of the more promising future developments for our civilization. TAB 2017 will provide a showcase for the most interesting emergent actors in the field,'' says the architects.

The jury of the competition is led by Michael U. Hensel from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, one of the key players in the field of sustainable architecture; other jury members include TAB 2017 curator Claudia Pasquero, and the head of Estonian Museum of Architecture, Triin Ojari.

The folly will be built in August 2017 in front of the Estonian Architecture Museum in Tallinn, on an all-grass area, with a flat area of 17x17m on top of a slightly elevated area. Penetrative foundations cannot be used on the site; the folly can have a maximum height of 5m and should have a lifespan of at least 23 months. 

Participants are asked to use local sustainable material – timber – and winners have a chance to co-produce it with local timber industry, where there is machinery available for lam-wood, 5 axis CNC milling for timber or planar surfaces, lasering, etc. The use of local industrial CNC capabilities is encouraged. 

Further information and terms of the competition can be found at website, where digital portfolios can also be submitted until 15th October 2016 to enter the first stage of the competition. 

Schedule
15 October 2016 - I stage digital portfolio submission
1 November 2016 - II stage participants announced
1 February 2017- II stage design submission
August 2017 - construction
13 to 17 September 2017 - opening with exhibition, book launch, symposium.

Prizes
All entries qualified for the second stage will be published and exhibited at TAB 2017. The winner will have a 10000 € budget to realise the project.

Tallinn Architecture Biennale TAB is an international architecture festival which introduces local architecture culture, current issues concerning architecture, and looks at the future of the architectural profession. TAB offers a program of events for both architecture professionals, students and everyone interested in architecture. Within TAB 2015, an installation titled Body Building, designed by Pihlak and Tuksam was erected in Tallinn, becoming an inspiration to a separate TAB 2017 programme.

TAB 2017, titled "Bio.T.A.llinn" proposes a radical revision of the contemporary ‘urbansphere’ by suggesting novel terms for its sustainable co-evolution with the biosphere. TAB will showcase visionary models of urban development that respond to principles of biological self-organization, and that operate by embedding computational logics onto material substrata, the embodied algorithms of the future bio-city. TAB 2017 curatorial team is led by Claudia Pasquale and the event is produced by Estonian Centre of Architecture.

All images: TAB 2015 installation Body Building by Sille Pihlak and Siim Tuksam. Image © Tõnu Tunnel

> via TAB 2017