Public
2018
Tallinn has the potential to become a popular destination for innovation and development societies. A comfortable and pleasant living environment in quality urban space can be created through careful planning. In the heart of the capital, Freedom Square could be a world-renowned centre of competence, culture and leisure.
WHY?
According to research, the happiest people live in cities that have long contributed to a comfortable, healthy and attractive city environment. Tallinn, too, has to set itself greater goals when planning the city centre. Vast open spaces that waste city space can be transformed into outstanding, pioneering public spaces.
HOW?
In the Tallinn of the future there will be bicycle routes and a city-circle tram winding around the Old Town. Symbiosis between green areas and buildings that encourage exercise and movement will be erected instead of the usual extensively paved areas. A public function that has a tendency to be moved outside of the city to wasteland is now a hub in the heart of the city.
Multi-layered buildings will be established on Freedom Square to activate the area and enable new functions. "Freedom Square +" is situated at close to the same height as the current Freedom Square. The main entrances to the buildings are on this level and along the bastion walls and surrounding streets. The first underground level will be lit via openings in the ground and skylights. This layer will contain public spaces, but also service functions and parking. There will be two additional layers for underground parking. The car park will be accessible via the entrance to today's Freedom Square. The proposed landscape solution takes into account the foundation depth of the bastion walls and the necessity of preserving bridge constructions and exhibiting the historic counterscarp wall.
The area in question can be used to direct people to the Old Town. To reduce traffic in the Old Town, cars should be parked here, where people will be able to ask for more information about what is happening in the heart of the city. This will be a junction for visitors heading into the Old Town.
At present, the bastions feature fragmented parks that are in use, but do not make up one integral park belt. Inger Bastion, located at an important pedestrian traffic point, is the most suitable bastion belt "starter". It is an important building with a public function, or a collection of them, that attracts people's attention to the area and directs and instructs the use of the bastions as a whole.
