The morning started in the forest with waking up and eating breakfast. Also everybody helped cleaning out the house and sauna because we had to give it back in the same condition it was. With everybodys help the house was clean by the time the bus arrived to take us back to Tartu and get ready for the seminar InspU later that day in the Genialistide klubi.

The seminar started at 17.30 and lasted 'til 20.00, it was quite short but really interesting, The seminar introduced some of the examples that have already created inspiring changes in the cityscape of Tartu. Platforms of river Emajõgi, tavern Möku, UIT’s promotional event “Pikk 86” – these are the examples whose background were introduced and afterwards a workshop was held to contemplate about new inspiring changes in Tartu. Previously mentioned examples were introduced by Tiit Sild, Lauri Kinkar and Marie Kliiman. In addition to Tartu’s examples, young architects from Bucharest also gave an overview on happenings in Romania. Longer summary about the seminar will also be on Linnalabors' web page shortly.

Check the summary of the InspU seminar from here.

Reflections by Sille Lääs

This day was going to be a bit out of context. Until now we had concentrated only to the urban themes, but now we were going out from the city to the nature. The trip was to Praalis' forest house in the County of Põlva. We got there about 3.30 pm and after putting our things away we headed to a hike to the bog nearby. This little trip to the bog was planned by Ave and Jaana who lended all sorts of nature books from the library and also brought binoculars to do a little bit of birdwatching. Everybody could go through the books quickly and two teams were formed, ones who had to concentrate to the animals and others to the plants in the bog and later do a little presentation about what we saw. For romanians our nature was a bit different from what they were used to but it didn't offer them any big surprises either. Most of us kept the hike short, around 3 hours because it started to rain, but some of us wanted a bit more nature and they were there about 5 hours, when they arrived back to the forest house others already had started cooking and making preparations for the evening which included also going to the sauna. Only 3 romanians got the courage to try it, and I think they liked it though when the temperature got over 90 they preferred the cooler parts of sauna which was understandable. That night was also about getting to know about each culture better, so both estonians and romanians cooked their national specialties which tasted really good after a long day. After the sauna it was time for more getting to know each other so different games from both cultures were played and the day ended sometime after the midnight.

Reflections by Sille Lääs

Third day of the youth exchange was going to be the day when we actually started to build the stuff we designed the day before, so Gen and Martin went to gather the tools and all the other things that were needed. But ofcourse we didn't just sit and wait for them, the playing and experimenting started and was a good fun, also we could feel the material and rethink some things. With tools the building process began, because we couldn't come to a one certain concept everybody were given free hands and this worked out very well because at the end of the day, after very much experimentating, we had two teams and to projects we will go on with.

But for a little break, some of us went to the city centre to childrens tent to play and have fun with them, but ended up also being like chidren and doing all the crafts and activities themselves too. This night also ended with a city tour, after dinner we went to Geoexploration which takes place during the festival UIT. We had formed 4 teams the day before and after dinner 3 teams went with bikes, 1 on foot. Our team went on bikes and when we got the map from Genclub we were happy of our decision because the distances were very long. For our team it took about 4 hours to do the trip and collect all the 5 points and in some places it was quite extreme. One of our teammates got lost for some time and some surprises also came up during the way. But to sum up the Geotrip was fun and gave everybody a good night sleep :)

Kuula Vikerraadio uudislõiku Tartu-Bukaresti noortevahetuse raames toimuvast seminarist InspU. Oma nägemusi inspireerivast linnaruumist jagavad seminari korraldaja Laura Uibopuu, linnafestivali UIT programmijuht Marie Kliiman ja Arhitektuurikaubamaja tegevjuht Tiit Sild.

Rohkem infot seminarist InspU leiad siit .

The second morning (August 11th) started at the Lille Maja a bit after 10am. After some reflections to the previous day it was time to finish the posters of the seminar InspU (coming on Wednesday) which was actually planned for the first day but was cut out due to lack of time. Later the Estonian team leader Gen put them up all over the city. Around 11am it was time to get things going. The purpose of this project is to make urban furniture from recyclable materials. After hours of teamwork and discussions lots of good ideas came out. Although we couldn't decide what the final product(s) will be, we all came to understanding that it should be something like an organism consisting of separate parts but functioning together. Hopefully the concept will be clearer tomorrow when we have to find the missing material (to gather inspiration, we collected some materials before the Romanians came).

After the creative workshop we headed to another tour to the city, this time by bikes. The route was much longer and we heard and saw much about contemporary architecture in Tartu. The most anticipated part of the evening was visiting the squat at the Anna Haava street 7a where we were introduced what is squatting and how squatters live. This time the dinner was cooked by the squatters. They had prepared a very good vegetarian soup. The night ended late because everybody was so into listening to the guide who introduced us their interesting life in the squat.

Reflections by Sille Lääs

Here you can find the photos of our activities! Updated daily by Kadri Mets.