Paavli Kvartal

A digital home for the quarter#

Paavli Kvartal is a creative quarter in northern Tallinn, home to businesses, rental spaces and a cultural programme. The website had to do three jobs at once: introduce the quarter to a visitor, present the available rental spaces, and keep the events calendar current.

The goal was something the quarter's own team could manage - without every new business, space or event needing a developer.

Three content types, one coherent whole#

Businesses, rental spaces and events are content with quite different logic, but to a visitor they have to add up to one clear picture. On top of that, the cultural centre's programme lived in a separate system, from which events would otherwise have been copied across by hand.

• Rental spaces needed filtering and spatial context on a map of the quarter.
• Entering events by hand would have meant continuous duplicated work.
• Content management had to stay simple enough for the quarter's own team.

A custom theme and an automatic feed#

We built a custom WordPress theme with ACF Gutenberg blocks, where each block's assets are compiled separately. Businesses, rental spaces and events each got their own post type, tying the content to the map and the filters. For events we wrote a plugin that synchronises the cultural centre's programme automatically, twice a day.

Information architecture and UX#

The three content types were brought into one navigation, where a visitor moves from the quarter to a specific space or event.

An interactive map#

A filterable map ties rental spaces and businesses to their locations, so the choice makes sense spatially.

Event import#

A custom plugin reads the source site's feed and keeps events current without any manual work.

A light foundation to build on#

The theme is block-based and each block's assets are compiled separately, so no page loads more code than it needs. The animations and the scrolling behaviour were chosen so they don't cost performance or readability.

What changed#

• The content keeps itself current. Events reach the site automatically, with no duplicated entry.
• Rental spaces are findable. The filterable map gives an interested visitor both the spatial and the practical picture immediately.
• A foundation to build on. The block-based theme allows new sections without rebuilding the site.