The Uus-Veerenni residential quarter park, developed and built by Merko, received the annual award of the Estonian Association of Landscape Architects in 2023. This public park area offers a place for children to play and adults to relax in tranquil green surroundings.

Kino Landscape Architects devised a solution that repurposes leftover materials from the demolition of the old area to design the new one, an approach that is not yet considered the norm in Estonia but rather an exception. The practice of swapping old objects for new ones, often unrelated to the state they are in, is a widely accepted way of thinking based on the assumption that new always means better. However, the reality can be quite the opposite when it comes to quality.

In the Uus-Veerenni Park area, the decades-old slab foundation was broken up. The pieces of concrete were piled for children to play on, and a more traditional playground with swings and a climbing frame was added. In another area, grooves were cut into the asphalt of the former plywood factory’s warehouse, transforming it into a recreation and play space. At the edge of the park, the wild trees and bushes growing up from between the asphalt and the garden’s foundation were repurposed to fulfil the same function.

Playing with existing material at Uus-Veerenni had an additional motive – to repurpose the tattered and fatigued old material with no heritage value to create a liberating, more spontaneous environment alongside the smooth and glossy apartment designs, allowing residents’ thoughts to move from everyday life to the eternal and poetic.

Kino Landscape Architects and Velvet design agency assisted Merko in creating the Uus-Veerenni Park.