A curious sight awaits visitors at this year’s Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB) outside the Museum of Estonian Architecture: a monumental sculptural installation appears to have been forcefully tied in a knot by a supernatural power. Titled “Steampunk” and made from steam-bent hardwood, the voluptuous pavilion is the winner of TAB’s installation programme ‘Huts and habitats’ and will remain in place until the next edition in 2021. The installation was designed by Soomeen Hahm and Igor Pantic, two tutors from UCL’s Barlett School of Architecture, in collaboration with Gwyllim Jahn and Cameron Newnham, whose Australian company Fologram facilitates the construction of complex designs through the use of Augmented Reality (AR) software, and Format Engineers. Primitive in sensibility and futuristic in aspiration, Steampunk’s natural materials and organic morphology belie the pioneering technology behind its construction.
