Tallinn is moving towards a more sustainable and energy-efficient future. Neighbourhood-based renovation and urban space between buildings, in partnership between the city and neighbourhoods, will be seen as a way to accelerate progress towards these goals. The SOFTacademy project aims at neighbourhood renovation, where two or more buildings with a common courtyard area and the space between them are renovated together, applying the principles of beautiful, inclusive and sustainable planning, in partnership between the city and the communities. This approach not only helps to make buildings more sustainable, but also helps to build a more cohesive community. The SOFTacademy project focuses on four buildings in the oldest first micro-neighbourhood of Mustamäe – Akadeemia tee 4, 6, 14 and 22 and the courtyard between them.

Benefits of neighbourhood renovation for residents

A large proportion of apartment buildings in Estonia were built at a time when little attention was paid to energy efficiency, and are now coming to the end of their lifespan. Such buildings require comprehensive renovation at an increasingly rapid pace to improve energy use, as well as indoor climate, communications and structures.

However, renovation is often a difficult task for housing associations. Renovation work is usually taken over by the members of the cooperative, who act voluntarily and often for the first time in an area where knowledge, aspirations and perceptions of the division of responsibilities vary widely. Effective communication plays an important role in facilitating and speeding up the process. Neighbourhood renovation provides an opportunity to promote joint action and information sharing – which in turn helps to streamline and simplify the renovation process. It also allows for a more participatory approach to public space design, bringing the city into the process and providing organisational and financial support.

Renovating the courtyards between the buildings will also create a coherent and visually attractive urban environment that will encourage community interaction and gatherings. This holistic renovation model creates better opportunities to connect residents with the city and to increase cooperation. One of SOFTacademy’s key objectives is to develop and test a collaborative model that engages neighbourhoods and improves communication between the city and its residents.

Neighbourhood renovation also offers economic benefits. Simultaneous renovation of several buildings increases the interest of larger construction companies in projects, as the volumes of work are larger and the logistical costs lower. This can help to reduce overall costs and shorten construction noise and disruption.

The SOFTacademy pilot project will renovate buildings with factory-made modular elements. The use of such standardised elements will help to keep the duration of the works short and reduce the associated disturbance, as well as opening up opportunities for future cost savings. Neighbourhood renovation also creates the prerequisite for innovative solutions that are better adapted to the urban environment – something that would be difficult or inappropriate in the case of stand-alone renovation.

A sustainable solution that benefits the city

Around 42% of Tallinn’s building stock dates back to the years 1640-1999, when energy efficiency was not given much attention and 4,000-5,000 buildings will need renovation in the coming years. The city’s strategic development plans set the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. Renovation of individual houses will not achieve the necessary acceleration to reach the target, the ecological footprint of the building stock on the climate will remain high.

Neighbourhood renovation has the potential to reduce the complexity of renovation, bring down the cost of construction, shorten the construction period, increase the quality of the space between buildings while extending the lifetime of buildings, and increase cooperation and a sense of identity between communities. Successful solutions will also inspire other neighbourhoods to renovate in a neighbourhood way, helping to create an effect of scale and a wave of renovation.

The SOFTacademy project’s experience of inclusive renovation will be of interest to other European cities that are also looking for solutions to reduce the impact of buildings on energy consumption and thus on the climate, and to accelerate renovation. SOFTacademy’s activities are being followed and replicated, for example, by the project’s foreign partners in Lahti (Finland), Warsaw (Poland) and Krško (Slovenia).