A toolbox for designing sustainable and high-quality living environment in Estonia

The project set out to create a common ground among planning specialists on what a high-quality, sustainable living environment means in Estonia. This is necessary for facilitating operations and developing a systemic set of tools to help plan a built environment where high spatial quality meets sustainability considerations. Based on international principles like the New European Bauhaus as well as national strategies, the platform focuses on nine key thematic areas and provides a description of each topic, references to relevant documents, guiding control questions, and guiding materials and tools along with best practice examples to help to harmonize the quality of planning and create more coherence between different levels of planning.

The first version of the platform was prepared by SEI Tallinn (lead partner), Hendrikson DGE, and Liikuvusagentuur. The base version of the platform:

• Supports the development of a sustainable and high-quality living environment in accordance with the “Estonia 2035” strategy and other significant national and international documents and goals within the sector.

• Creates a cohesive and easy-to-use set of tools to enhance knowledge-based practices in decision-making.

• Empowers spatial planners, offering experts with different backgrounds the support and knowledge to consider the sustainability aspects in spatial planning.

• Helps streamline the work of spatial planners by offering relevant materials on one easy-to-use platform.

To create the toolbox, the project partners applied a co-creative approach, analysed local and international documents and strategies, conducted focus group interviews to define the needs of local experts, and followed up with several feedback sessions with the experts as well as several testing rounds.

The nine thematic focuses make up the structure of the spatial planning toolbox. Each thematic chapter offers a description of the concept and the aim, guiding control questions, valuable tools and materials, and governing documents to follow in spatial planning. The toolbox is built on the planeerimine.ee website and it is a living and developing platform. The project team handed over the platform’s introduction, maintenance and further development to the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture at the end of 2024.

The project was carried out between August 2023 and December 2024 and was divided into three phases: conceptual, development, and test phase. The research group consisted of experts from SEI Tallinn (lead partner), Hendrikson DGE and Liikuvusagentuur. The Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture supported and gave feedback to the research group. Regular meetings were held with the project lead group, comprised of experts from different institutions.

An international Advisory Board offered additional quality control. The Advisory Board included Amsterdam space planner and award-winning landscape architect Joyce van der Berg, Weimar University urban studies professor Frank Eckhardt, urban studies Researcher Associate Dr Ammalia Podlaszewska and SEI’s Head of the Societies, Climate and Policy Support Division Fedra Vanhuyse. The council ensured the high quality of the project.

The project was initially commissioned by the Estonian Ministry of Finance and later by the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture.