Anthony Clay Bureau
Tõnis Savi portrait
Photo: Ester Kannelmäe

Tõnis Savi

CHARTERED ARCHITECT, LEVEL 7 · MEMBER, ESTONIAN ARCHITECTS UNION · FOUNDER, ANTHONY CLAY BUREAU · CO-FOUNDER, LIIKUVUSAGENTUUR · DJ AT IDA RAADIO · DAD.

Tõnis Savi is an Estonian architect, urban planner and the founder of Tallinn-based architecture and interior architecture practice Anthony Clay Bureau (ACB). He is also a co-founder of mobility consultancy Liikuvusagentuur.

Tõnis Savi grew up in southern Estonia. He studied architecture at the Estonian Academy of Arts and spent time at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart — enough time to understand how other places think about cities before coming back to build in this one.

He is the kind of person who has always had too many interests to pick just one. Architecture. Urban planning. Bicycles. Records. He has been making things for as long as he can remember — buildings, strategies, events, music. Tallinn's techno community knows him as well as the architecture one does, which tells you something about how he moves through the world.

His practice has always had a particular preoccupation: what kind of city do we actually want to live in? Not as a slogan. As a practical question that turns up in every brief, every site visit, every argument about a parking space that could have been a tree.

He is one of the earlier and more persistent voices for human-scale urbanism in Estonia — the argument that cities should be designed around people on foot and on bikes, not around the cars that happened to arrive first. He has made this case in print, in public, at government conferences, and on occasion in the street itself, at night, with several thousand people on bicycles.

He founded Anthony Clay Bureau in 2014. Before that he worked at Koko Arhitektid and Allianss Arhitektid in Tallinn, and briefly at Mutabor Design in Hamburg.

Available for speaking engagements → Contact

A voice the industry trusts

Tõnis has been an active member of the Estonian Architects Union for years — showing up, not just signing up. His media appearances, lobbying, teaching, and public speaking have shaped the conversation around urban planning and architecture in Estonia more than most. Journalists, municipalities, and institutions call him when they need someone who actually knows what they are talking about and can explain it without jargon.

Mobility as a second language

In 2021 Tõnis co-founded Liikuvusagentuur OÜ with Marek Rannala and Raul Kalvo — a consultancy that works with Estonian cities and developers on cycling networks, street space, and transport planning. It is not a side project. It is a parallel practice that means every ACB architectural brief benefits from a founder who thinks about how people move, not just where they live. That combination is unusual. It is also very useful.

The Public Face Of Better Cities

Tõnis speaks at government conferences, climate assemblies, municipal seminars, and architecture events. Over many years he has built a presence across Estonian media — from ERR, Estonia's national public broadcaster, and Vikerraadio, to commercial television channels and current affairs programmes, to Äripäev, Estonia's business daily, Delfi.ee, and the leading newspapers Postimees and Õhtuleht. He does not just talk about cities. He organises events that make people feel them differently, which is often more effective.

Selected Publications

Selected talks

  • Tartu Climate Assembly (2022) — "How to Create a Good (Street) Space?"
  • Delfi Media Environmental Conference (2022) — "The Future is Simple!"
  • Heritage Protection Board Training Day (2022) — "How to Maintain the Old Town Through Lively Streets?"
  • Estonian Architecture Center, training for local government officials (2021–2022)
  • Narva Urban Lab, international panel on shrinking cities (2018)
  • Tallinn City Government & Embassy of the Netherlands, bicycle seminar, moderator (2016)
  • Tallinn Bicycle Week seminars — curator and moderator (2011–present)

Selected media