The main theme for the 2015 Milan Expo is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, embracing technology, innovation, culture, traditions and creativity and how they relate to food and diet.
Our competition entry’s name was “SEENEVAIKUS (mashroom silence)”. We tried to create simple but strong visual identity in order not to sunk into amount of information in the Expo. Instead of introducing Estonia via video projections and series of posters, we would like to provide spatial and tactile experience.
The main theme for the 2015 Milan Expo is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, embracing technology, innovation, culture, traditions and creativity and how they relate to food and diet.
Our competition entry’s name was “SEENEVAIKUS (mashroom silence)”. We tried to create simple but strong visual identity in order not to sunk into amount of information in the Expo. Instead of introducing Estonia via video projections and series of posters, we would like to provide spatial and tactile experience.
Foraging
Estonia is a micro-country and Seenevaikus videocould do well if it would therefore direct the attention to smaller alternative solutions which help to optimize the global resource circulation. One such alternative is traditional food-gathering – the ability and habit to turn towards nature and gather food yourself.
A peculiar set of statistics can be pointed out here – while Estonia ranks next to Taiwan in the Human Development Index and the literacy rate is one of the highest in the world, it is estimated that up to half of the population can be considered food-gatherers. At the same time the habit of mushroom or berry picking is waning in the West – even in those societies, which could be proud of their vast untouched nature (such as the Scandinavian countries).
Foraging is a way of motivating and actively involving people – to give them an incentive to go into the nature. This is especially important considering the recent developments in our social life (think in terms of IT for example).
Silence
It does not matter whether we take the highly competitive World Expo or the daily life as a metric – silence is still a very valuable and scarce resource. Information can bought or consumed for free but the act of ‘buying’ silence is becoming rather tricky – one cannot simply pay an orchestra to stop them playing (as the show must go on).
Our exposition is deemed to show Estonia as a place where one could still easily enjoy silence. Over 50% of the total area of Estonia is covered with virtually untouched forests. The inhabitants can still remember that the forest acts as a food provider, and every second person has tried food-gathering himself.
Opening Up
The exposed pavilion area is open in a way which makes the entrance intuitive – one does not have to make a conscious decision to enter (especially considering the other pavilions filled with an abundance of information). Taking into account the fact that Estonia is a little known country with a limited budget, it would be rather complicated to erect a closed pavilion, which would be inviting enough in the given context.
On the other hand, our pavilion reinforces Estonia as a hospitable, inviting and open country. The good sides of the country can be experienced just as easily as the pavilion itself.
Team:
HG ARHITEKTUUR
Hanno Grossschmidt, Tomomi Hayashi, Siim Endrikson
VATSON
Timo Toiger, Jüri Franciscus Lotman, Marti Laurimaa, Tauri Birken
PRISMATTERY
Teet Praks, Kristjan Maruste, Stemo Ojavee
KARABANA
Kristjan Holm
HANNES PRAKS STUDIO
Hannes Praks
Põhjaka Mõis restaurant
Märt Metsallik, Joel Kannimäe, Ott Tomik
Consultants
Britt Samoson, fashion designer
Tarmo Tammekivi, wooden construction (MTÜ Rahvusliku Ehituse Selt)
Location:
Milan, Italy
Open architectural competition:
Honorable mention, 4th place, 2013
