VARES is an interdisciplinary architectural residency in the Estonian town of Valga that seeks alternative approaches to architectural practice beyond conventional commercial commissions. VARES functions simultaneously as a shared house, a community center, a workshop, a summer cottage, and a warehouse for salvaged building materials. It is also an architectural practice and a community with a pan-European reach—and, for some, perhaps a somewhat questionable lifestyle.

In her lecture, Mari Möldre offers an unofficial account of daily life at VARES: the small details, routine tasks, unexpected complications, and humorous situations. Using seemingly mundane examples, she raises broader questions about what it means today to engage with architecture in its broadest sense and how to create an alternative to market-oriented practice. In doing so, she also highlights its contradictions: how to sustain such an alternative in the long term when it, too, depends on projects, grant applications, and a large amount of unpaid work—or work that is difficult to quantify financially.

Mari Möldre is an Estonian architect. Her practice encompasses exhibitions, designs, and the construction of small-scale buildings, as well as the preservation of historic buildings. She is one of the founders and curators of the VARES architectural residency in the Estonian city of Valga.

The lecture is part of the accompanying program for the exhibition by the Estonian studio LLRRLLRR. Both they and VARES are seeking ways to practice architecture beyond conventional commercial commissions, striving to work with existing structures, reuse materials and local conditions, and engage in practical experimentation.