Designing with Demons: In search of living bricks in Estonia. A workshop at TTU Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies

The present book gathers materials, methods and reflections arising from a week-long workshop which was held at the Tallinn Technical University (TTÜ) 27-31 March 2017. The event was a collaboration between Kristi Grišakov, Head of the Landscape Architecture programme for the Interdisciplinary Landscape Architecture Master Studio, and the Experimental Architecture Group (EAG). The course featured guest lectures by Tiina Peil from the School of Culture and Learning, Södertörn University and Hannes Tönisson, Institute of Ecology, Tallinn University, which aimed to widen the range of conceptual and practical tools through which participants could explore the role of design in shaping complex, hybrid human and nonhuman relationships in an era of ecocide. With workshop techniques drawn from Experimental Architecture, a visionary practice that generates design methods, experimentation and the production of prototypes, students were invited to propose fundamental units of design and construction for the 21st century – “living bricks”. The term “living” in this context incorporates both the processes that underpin life and the principles whereby spaces invite ecological entanglement and inhabitation.