Estonian studio Salto Architects have completed a temporary summer theatre in Tallinn made of black spray-painted straw bales. The Straw Theatre is built on top of the former Skoone bastion. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bastion worked as a public garden, and during the Soviet era it was more or less restricted recreational area for the Soviet navy with a wooden summer theatre and a park on top. With the summer theatre having burnt down and the Soviet troops gone, for the last 20 years the bastion has remained a closed and neglected spot in the centre of town. In such a context, the Straw Theatre is an attempt to acknowledge and temporarily reactivate the location, doing all this with equally due respect to all historical layers of the site. The Straw Theatre is a unique occasion where straw has been used for a large public building and adjusted to a refined architectural form. For reinforcement purposes, the straw walls have been secured with trusses, which is a type of construction previously unused. As the building is temporary, it has not been insulated as normal straw construction would require but has been kept open to experience the raw tactile qualities of the material and accentuate the symbolic level of the life cycle of this sustainable material. (source).