This year we are all celebrating 100 years of academic forestry education in Estonian language in Estonia! And we couldn’t be more happy that the academia behind it - Estonian University of Life Sciences - has joined the Garage48 wood series organizing partners community.

The reason behind it lies in understanding the value of interdisciplinary teamwork and thinking outside the box, says Ahto Kangur, the organizer from Estonian University of Life Sciences side. “Forest and wood are so characteristic to Estonians, that we tend to stay stuck in known technological solutions and use practices. And exactly here lies the true value of the Garage48 wood makeathon - when people with different levels of expertise and from various fields start to develop the solutions for the so many ways of using wood.“

For the past 4 years, once a year the Garage48 Wood makeathon takes over a workshop in the Baltics. Having handed the hosting torch over to Estonian University of Life Sciences, Renee Puusepp from Estonian Academy of Arts is excited. “Estonian University of Life Sciences technical opportunities for prototyping are enviable. If wanted, a whole wooden house could be assembled there in 48 hours!“  

One of our favourite moments of the wood makeathon was, when the hosting university handed over a collaboration appreciation gift to Estonian Academy of Arts, with the determined plan to keep this collaboration going.

The extraordiness of the 2020 wood makeathon lies not only in the wonderful collaboration of Estonian universities, but also in so many of the industry players contributing to the event with proposing actual problems and challenges for the participants to hack on. This includes Harmet arriving to the workshops with full-sized modular houses - to make prototyping more real-life for the participants and breaking all our prototype size records, in times. Estonian Woodhouse Association & Estonian Woodhouse Cluster, Metsä Wood, Estonian Academy of Arts and Creatomus Solutions gave out a combined 8000€ of development support for the best teams.

Let’s see, who they are!

OVERALL WINNER, Pattern Building 3500€ PRIZE & Ajujaht exclusive TOP 100 straight pass

Modular Terraced Housing

 The winning team after their final presentation.

A quick and easy solution for developers to build a terraced housing complex, all the while saving their valuable time, energy and nerves. To succeed in doing that, we are using the Pattern Building system and the Creatomus platform for visualising the desired complex. We are providing the developer with different flexible house plans for them to explore for their potential clients. Our goal is to make building terraced housing easy, fast and most importantly flexible. 

Helin Kuldkepp - team leader, pitcher; Patrick Liik - 3D modeller, Creatomus configurator; Laura Liis Vilbiks - physical modeller; Jael Kotkas - structural engineer; Abdullah Siddiqui - business developer, marketer.

The sincere, total surprise of winning, that left the team lead Helin Kuldkepp, an architecture student at Estonian Academy of Arts, speechless when receiving the award, was also one of our absolute favourite moments of the makeathon!

1st RUNNER-UP with straight pass to Beamline Beta TOP14

EcoPack

Sustainable packaging material. We will substitute single-use plastics in the packaging (bubble wrap, styrofoam) with wood-based strings made out of wood industry's waste or with wood ribbons, made of raw undried trunks of low value species.

Rain Randsberg: CTO, inventor of the wood spiral solution; Mihkel Tamm: CEO, previously founder of Suckõrs; Karl Pärtel: CMO; Andi Kokk: Sales, Design; Vello Laanemaa: designer, wood technologist, inventor of the wood ribbon solution, Tõuk OÜ; Vesse Põllu: wood technologist.

 Vunnel team receiving their award announcement from Ivo Jaanisoo, Head of         Department of Construction and Housing at Ministry of Economic Affairs and          Communications of Estonia.

Virtual sales agent/ questionnaire to filter out people who aren't actual clients.

Sigrid Luiga - designer of prototype; Evelin Kiisk - team leader; Matis Velt - main idea; Margus Pauts - pitcher; Doris Turk - working on prototype.

TeTrees

An educational platform for student communities to empower them to be more environmental friendly and give them relevant challenges to have more impact on the world.

Ucha Vekua - Project Manager/ Team Lead; Fanny Billault - Designer; Zita Arpasi - Researcher/ Visionary; Laura Leht - Researcher; Anas Abdelkhalek - UX/ UI; Abdullah Siddiqui - Tech advisor.

ETNIKA

   ETNIKA team photo.

Exotic bungalow in the nature.

10 people and they all have their roll-architects, designers, building specialists, visionars.

 Timberwave team after their final presentation.

Priit - leader/visionary; Risto - wood technologist; Kaarel - architect/graphic designer; Andres - architect/3D designer.

Endream Wooden Alarm Clock

   Endream team after their final presentation.

Our idea is to validate if it's possible and profitable to produce consumer electronics cases out of wood.

Toomas Kordemets - Hardware; Erki Aring - software; Laura Roosileht and Urooj Fatima - Marketing

All Garage48 Future of Wood 2020 can upload their solution to Metsä Wood open innovation platform www.opensourcewood.com by the end of Nov 18th and compete

All participants of the 9 teams, mentors, organizers and partners - we are all winners for collaborating and growing the community around the wood makeathon series, to develop the sustainable and efficient future of Estonian architecture, wood & forest!

The extraordinary element of Garage48 hackathons, still after 10 years, are the mentors and experts motivated and ready to contribute their precious time during a weekend! THANK YOU - Jörgen Dobris and Lauri Semevsky from TSENTER Wood Processing and Furniture Manufacturing Competence Centre, Tõnis Teppand, Meelis Teder, Mait Lang, Steffen Noe and Ahto Kangur from Estonian University of Life Sciences, Renee Puusepp from Estonian Academy of Arts, Tuukka Kyläkallio from Metsä Wood, Lauri Kivil, Annika Kibus and Martin Talts from Estonian Woodhouse Association & Estonian Woodhouse Cluster, Siim Leisalu from Timbeco, Elari Kivisoo from Prefab Ehitus, Mari Kullerkup from Profab Houses, Karin Kiviste, Ilya Vasilyev and Taavi Lõoke from Creatomus Solutions, Egle Vogt and Alo Tamm from Harmet, Kiur Lootus from Lootus & Woodfort, Kristo Kalbe from TalTech & 396 Pattern Buildings, Siim Tiisvelt from 3+1 architects, Tõnis Agasild from Arro & Agasild Inseneribüroo, Aleksander Tomas from KOOR Wood, Merit Valdsalu from Single.Earth and Orm-Gregori Joost from Rothoblaas. Having open-minded, fun and sharp, dedicated mentors team like you is only pure joy and a true driver of high quality prototyping.

It was such a pleasure and fun to have a small Garage48 family reunion, as so many of mentors from our core family joined this weekend, including our two co-founders Priit Salumaa and Jüri Kaljundi. Sven Kirsimäe, Martin Verrev, Jaanus Sakkis, Veli-Johan Veromann, Triin Preem, Mayri Tiido and Karel Nappus - Garage48 events just aren't the same without you! 💚

Marek Metslaid, Director of Estonian University of Life Sciences Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering, Mari Hanikat, CEO of Garage48 and Ivo Jaanisoo, Head of Department of Construction and Housing at Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia  - thank you for contributing as jury members and making the tough decisions of winners.

Since we launched the Garage48 Wood event series with the initiative and partnership of

in Väimela, we’ve been working hard together with our partners to grow the community around and for the event series. Looking into our anniversary year, we’re truly happy and excited and feel as strong as ever, together with our partners, supporters and participants community  - to continue the series and invite you to the fifth wood makeathon in autumn 2021!

Thank you, Startup Estonia, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Estonian Academy of Arts, TSENTER Wood Processing and Furniture Manufacturing Competence CentreEuropean regional Development Fund, Metsä Wood, Harmet, Creatomus Solutions, Estonian Woodhouse Association, Estonian Woodhouse Cluster, Rothoblaas, Tartu City, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Ajujaht, CleanTech Forest and sTARTUp Day 2021

for making Garage48 Future of Wood 2020 into a reality!

That's not all! You can

Enjoy the hackathon via our PHOTO ALBUM.

See all the teams via Favourite of the Audience photo album

Photos by  Siim Tiirik.


Watch again: FINAL demos LIVE and AWARD CEREMONY