Estonian studio Salto Architects have completed a temporary summer theatre in Tallinn made of black spray-painted straw bales.

Visitors climb stairs inside a stepped tunnel to access the Straw Theatre's rectangular hall.

A system of trusses holds the stacked straw bales in place.

Located on a fortified hilltop, the site used to host regular summer theatre for Soviet Troops but has been abandoned for over twenty years.

The stage will be in place for six months to celebrate Tallinn's status as a 2011 European Capital of Culture.

Temporary theatres and cinemas have been popular on Dezeen lately - see our earlier stories about a timber theatre elsewhere in Estonia and an English cinema under a motorway flyover.

Photography is by Martin Siplane and Karli Luik.

The following information is provided by the architects:

Location: Skoone Bastion, Tallinn, Estonia
Credits: Maarja Kask, Karli Luik, Ralf Lõoke, Pelle-Sten Viiburg
Project year: 2010-2011

NO99 Straw Theatre is an object standing on the verge of being a pure functional container on one hand, and an art installation on the other.

The Straw Theatre is built on the occasion of Tallinn being the European Capital of Culture, to house a special summer season programme of theatre NO99, lasting from May to October 2011. Thus it is a temporary building, operating for half a year, built for a specific purpose, programme and location.

The Straw Theatre is built in central Tallinn, on top of the former Skoone bastion, one of the best preserved baroque fortifications of Tallinn. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bastion worked as a public garden, and during the Soviet era it was more or less restricted recreational area for the Soviet navy with a wooden summer theatre and a park on top.

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With the summer theatre having burnt down and the Soviet troops gone, for the last 20 years the bastion has remained a closed and neglected spot in the centre of town with real estate controversies and several failed large-scale development plans. In such a context, the Straw Theatre is an attempt to acknowledge and temporarily reactivate the location, test its potential and bring it back to use, doing all this with equally due respect to all historical layers of the site.

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The rectangular main volume of the theatre is situated exactly on the same spot as the navy summer theatre, and one descending flight of stairs of the latter is used as a covered walkway and entrance area to the Straw Theatre. The building is surrounded by various outdoor recreational functions including an oversized chess board, table tennis, swings, and a baking oven, all with a non-commercial and pleasantly low-key feel.

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The dramatic appeal of the building stems from its contextual setting on the site and its black, uncompromisingly mute main volume contrasting with a descending „tail“ with an articulate angular roof. And of course one cannot escape the effect of the material – uncovered straw bales, spraypainted black.

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The Straw Theatre is a unique occasion where straw has been used for a large public building and adjusted to a refined architectural form. For reinforcement purposes, the straw walls have been secured with trusses, which is a type of construction previously unused. As the building is temporary, it has not been insulated as normal straw construction would require but has been kept open to experience the raw tactile qualities of the material and accentuate the symbolic level of the life cycle of this sustainable material.

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Estonian firm Salto Architecs have completed a sports hall in Tartu, Estonia, where the concave rectangular structure appears to be draped over the undulating landscape.

Above photograph is by Reio Avaste

Called EMÜ Sports Hall, the pinched building is clad on three sides in larch, with little wooden protrusions making the surface nobbly, and clad on the final side with glass.

The architects created the ramped landscape on this previously flat field in order to make the building appear less imposing.

A burnt orange and white colour scheme features throughout the interior.

Above photograph is by Karli Luik

The sports hall serves the Estonian University of Life Sciences.

Photographs are by Kaido Haagen unless otherwise stated.

More buildings for sports on Dezeen »

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The following information is from the architects:

The chosen plot for the sports hall was an empty, flat field right at the roadside at the entrance to Tartu, so in addition to functionality and ability to integrate and organize the surrounding campus area, the architectural competition, in a way, expected a greater degree of representation than the building type would normally imply.

At the same time, the spatial programme of a sports hall largely prescribes the possibilities of designing the main volume. We decided to stretch all corners of the cubic volume, and to integrate the building organically with landscape.

Elevated ground forms a „cushion“ for the slightly entrenched building, thus optically minimising its volume, and continues in undulating forms, encompassing outdoor sports grounds and bicycle paths, towards a sloping valley further away.

The streched-out corners of the building create concave lines both in plan and elevation, gently relating to landscape and softening the size of the building.

At the same time the building retains sharpness, enabling constantly varying, expressive views from various angles.

This is due to optical effects of the form, clear-cut lines and finishing materials – glass on the longer sides of the building and larch cladding with wooden snags (nicknamed „hair“) on the shorter ones.

The latter also add to the subtle play of overall optical effects, being shorter and denser in the middle, and longer and more widely placed at the edges. The snags coloured red form the name of the building – EMÜ spordihoone.

Above photograph is by Karli Luik

In the interior, the same attitude continues – a limited repertoire of considered details and takes. Moving around, the overall feel is light and airy, easy to navigate.

The streched-out plan creates unconventional interior spaces. The choice of colours and materials is strictly limited to smooth exposed concrete and painted carroty surfaces with details in matte and shiny black.

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Irregularly placed bubbly interior windows opening towards the ballgames hall add a touch of frisky lightness and are echoed in the round glazed openings in gallery floor.

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In a delicate way, one is reminded that a sports hall is a bodily space – e.g. the concave outline of the building creates galleries narrowing in the middle, and with glazed openings in the floor the resulting space sharpens one’s bodily experience of space.

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Name: EMÜ Sports Hall
Location: Tartu, Estonia
Client: Estonian University of Life Sciences

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Architect: Salto AB
Authors: Maarja Kask, Karli Luik, Ralf Lõoke
Interior architects: Katrin Kaevats, Jaan Port

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Open competition: 2007, 1st prize
Completed: 2009
Size: 4500 m2

See also:

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Training centre by Chartier-Corbasson	Sports centre by Batlle i Roig Arquitectes	Gallery Orsta by Claesson Koivisto Rune

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