The village of Tila, located on the outskirts of Tartu, has architecture from different times because of several interruptions. The goal of the new education and community center is to create a focal point for this rapidly developing environment. The center can be an identity creator and to connect the interrupted, continuing development and scattered settlement into a new whole.
The proposed architectural solution ensures the transformation of an open, grassy area surrounded by various residential buildings into an active center for education and community. At the heart of the solution is a diagonal of pavilions to be built in several stages, where different qualities and functions alternate, and which can be extended and compacted in the light of expected developments. Due to the goal of turning the new building into a focal point of the settlement, the hierarchy of the front and back has been avoided.
Emphasis is placed on the passage corridor surrounded by greenery diagonally crossing the plot, which becomes an active spine – the public space running along it is divided into different zones, including different areas for outdoor education, recreation, events, and sports. The flat grassland landscape is diversified with green areas and artificial relief – the hills rise and fall alternating with artificial and natural grasslands, reducing the scale of the buildings and injecting impulsivity and unpredictability into the area.
The buildings, pressed into the landscape have simple geometry. They house a primary and elementary school, a kindergarten, and a sports building. In the school buildings, the study rooms are arranged in a zigzag pattern on one side of the volumes, leaving the other side as a spacious area for joint activities and recreation that extends through the floors. The ideas that carry the interior design are fluidity, compactness, and purity of materials. The energy efficiency is ensured through the shape and orientation of the buildings, rainwater collection, solar panels, and other solutions.
