Estonian Centre for Architecture has announced the 2022 curatorial team and the winning competition proposal, the proposal, entitled "Edible. Or, the Architecture of Metabolism", has been selected as the topic for the next Tallinn Architecture Biennale TAB 2022. 

The winning proposal was selected from the international Curatorial Call for the 6th installment of the biggest architecture event in the region. 

The selected Head Curators are architects Lydia Kallipoliti and Areti Markopoulou in collaboration with Co-Curator Ivan Sergejev.

The winning proposal “Edible” 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. 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.

"Edible" works around the notion of "food" that will be approached both literally and metaphorically; on the one hand exploring architectural strategies of local food production and self-sufficiency and on the other hand, integrating operations that use by-products of urban life into the built environment, replacing traditional linear systems of “make, use and dispose” with circular models that limit material and resource loss.

In the opinion of Villem Tomiste, Head of the TAB Curatorial Competition jury, “edible” architecture brings food production back to people – to our day-to-day living and working spaces – and not only by the way of decorative planting on the balcony, but as regular production. 

"The purpose of the project is 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" said Tomiste.

Tomiste added that the curators call on us to create and improve buildings and cities to increase their future locality. That kind of architecture would be able to create resources like food and energy, as well as recycle waste.

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. She holds a Diploma in Architecture and Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, an SMArchS in design and building technology from M.I.T, as well as a Master of Arts and a PhD from Princeton University. She 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. She 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” (curatorial team Kaija – Luisa Kurik, Ewa Effiom, Keiti Kljavin and Martina Schwab) and “Home” (curatorial team 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).

The Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB) is the biggest and most important architectural festival in the Baltics addressing relevant issues in architecture and delving into the present and the future of the field. TAB encourages synergy between Estonian and foreign architects, and between architects and the public, by creating contacts and exchanging ideas. 

TAB is organised by Estonian Centre for Architecture. The next edition TAB 2022 will in take place September- October 2022, with the opening week in September.

Top image: TAB 2022 Curatorial Team from left: Lydia Kallipoliti, Areti Markopoulou, Ivan Sergejev. Image courtesy of TAB

> via TAB