Vision competition Härjapea river journey

We participated in the vision competition organised by the Tallinn City Government on the Härjapea River Route.

The aim of the vision competition was to find new ideas for celebrating the ancient Härjapea riverbed in tallinn's urban space.

The river passing through the city started mills, swelled lakes, filled moats, gave drink to domestic animals, brought an emerging industry to its shores.
He formed a kind of backbone for the former human settlement in the vicinity of Tallinn, because life is still concentrated around water. Also in the disappearance of the river, it is interesting to look for his traces in the landscape.

We offered an architecton made of dolomite and metal for such a unifying visual dominance, which combines the functions of urban furniture, lighting, information board and sign.
It is an architecton on which you can not only rest your foot, but also follow the riverbed with your finger, perceive the movement of an ancient river in today's dynamic city; A person is often superficial, the mere text does not fascinate. When set in stone, there is a greater chance that the information transmitted is really worth understanding.

The general shape of the horizontal seating bench monitors the flow of Härjapea in the city and its intersection with modern streets and landmarks. The course of the Härjapea River has also been made understandable to the child and observable not as a regular upright information board, but as a horizontal one.

The seating bench part is heated by a heating cable to melt snow and ice. The load-bearing part of the bench is 10mm black metal, galvanized, painted, similarly treated text on a vertical pole. The text is illuminated in the background. All volumetric shapes on the stone are carried out on precise CNC machine tools.

As a material, we also use orgita light-toned dolomite, cold- and heat-resistant stone, which we mine here, as always during our 27 years of operation. For example, similarly, we also carried out dolomite platters and seating benches in the renovated Governor's Garden.

The described element at all Härjapea stops creates a uniform visual and identity. The vertical part of the architecton is noticeable in the landscape from afar, as a landmark invites you to take a closer look, take a closer look.

Then you can rest your feet and exchange ideas about the future and past of the city.

Härjapea riverbed in Tallinn