Internship Report

Master’s program in Architecture Internship title: Architect intern Company: Kavakava Architects (leading architects: Siiri Vallner, Indrek Peil) Place: , Duration: 01.09.2018 – 28.02.2019

Tasks During 6 months, I have participated various works with different focuses and scales. I involved in the whole process of two architectural competitions, which took around 3 months in total. One competition was Viimsi Young Talent School. It’s a school project that we proposed a solution of integrating architecture and local topography. I helped developing site plan schemes, volume study with physical models and also the drawings of final submissions. We won the first prize for the competition. After getting the contract, my main task was to develop detail design for the school project. For example, I helped developing two concert halls in the project with the consult of acoustic engineers, also had to consider the topic of multifunction and seating types. Also, I helped doing renovation design for two cylindrical concrete oil tank that are part of the school project. Those old oil tanks are going to be transferred into classrooms with special functions.

Another competition was Estonian Environment Ministry and Natural Museum. It is one of the biggest and most significant architecture competitions in Estonia in recent years. This competition was of bigger scale with a specific topic on environmental sustainability, as it was described in the competition brief that the buildings should be done mainly with wooden structure and fulfill near zero energy house standard. My tasks were developing the wooden structure and building façades. I also helped preparing the drawings for the competition submission, including 3D renderings, plans, sections, and explanatory visual diagrams. The project is awarded as the first prize.

In addition to competitions, I also helped with several urban design projects, mainly for making visual representations that can illustrate the ideas more clear and visual. The projects I was involved in including Tallinn Main Street, Vana-Kalamaja Hight Street, Main Square. Also, I participated and helped to developed visual materials for Unfinished Cities, a jointed with (EKA) and Kavakava Architects. It is a project that we investigated the potentials of Tallinn bastion belt, and proposed urban visions together with students from EKA. My task was to prepare visual representations. Internship Report

Learnings and observations I spent lots of time in competitions and I’ve learnt a lot from the experience. It was the first time for me to do architecture competitions in an architect firm. Kavakava is a small firm (4 person in total) and really good at doing competitions, they gained most of their commissions through open competitions in Estonia. It’s a precious experience that I can participate in all phases of competition and feel free to develop my ideas within the small team. In the Viimsi school project, it’s really good that I can have the full experience from developing the idea from scratch to carrying out detail design after winning the project. In the Environmental Ministry project, I’m happy that I can implement my interest and knowledge in wooden architecture into practice. With the urban design projects, I’ve learnt how to think urban design in this specific coldish climate and Estonian cultural context, which was totally a fresh experience for me since that it is really a different context from my home country.

Overall, working in a foreign context is inspiring by itself already. I’ve constant exposed to new ideas, culture and working environment on a daily basis. Kavakava is small and the working culture is rather silent. We don’t verbally communicate that much, but rather through independent work and mutual understanding. At first it might be unfamiliar for some people, but in the end I’ve adapted the working culture quite well.

Additional information

The travel arrangements are relatively easy and affordable to Tallinn. However, housing is not the easiest part, so I will recommend searching for it as soon as possible or with the help of locals. Daily commute from home to workplace is convenient sine Tallinn is not a hug city and public transportation is well connected.

Estonians are relatively quiet, inquisitive and straight forward, at least from my experience. And different from Finnish academic environment, Estonians don’t give compliments so often. So be prepared to adjust yourself in the cultural context. Also, Estonian cultures and natural landscapes are beautiful. Highly recommend whoever is interested to spend more time to explore other part of Estonia, to dive into its history and culture. In addition to the internship, I’ve also participated some other academic activities. In the summer I attended a summer school program organized by EKA. There are many summer school courses carried out by the institute with reasonable price or even free of charge. In the winter, I went to Tallinn University to take an Estonian language course, and I found it is really worthy even only giving a try to the unique language. All the short courses mentioned before are possible to get credits and to be transferred to Aalto’s transcript. Internship is also possible to be Internship Report integrated into study plan with 3-12 credits, which is calculated based on the equation of 80 working hours = 1 credit. Internship Report

Estonia Environment Ministry and Natural Museum, I prize, 2019

(Author: Siiri Vallner, Indrek Peil, Kristel Niisuke, Ko Ai)

Viimsi Young Talent School, I prize, 2018

(Author: Siiri Vallner, Indrek Peil, Kristel Niisuke, Ko Ai)