House J is situated on top of a high hill, on the edge of a single-family housing area. The architectural concept is based on the site: the building has a closed rear towards the North and East where the neighboring houses are, and it opens to the South and West, towards a natural forest. The house curves around an old pine tree, forming a lap with a sunny and sheltered courtyard. The free form and lush garden create a contrast to the rectangular building.
The best work environment in the Nordic region. The new Helsinki premises of CBRE, an internationally recognized company focused on work environments and real estate consulting, could have been nothing less.
When Fyra started to plan the facilities for their long-term partner the main idea was that the work can be fun and comfortable, but the space can still be distinguished and professional. The facilities are divided into an internal zone that is used only by employees and an external zone that acts as a showroom for various work environment solutions – a collaborative space for customers and partners that easily transforms into seminar or event use.
The Helsinki Olympic Stadium is a building with significant national value. It is a combination of the pure functionalist architecture of the 1930s and the external appearance of the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. For many Finns, the stadium symbolizes the dawn of a new era for the young nation. The stadium is a result of an open architectural competition held in the 1930s, won by architects Yrjö Lindegren and Toivo Jäntti.
The West Terminal 2 passenger ferry terminal is situated in Helsinki’s West Harbour on a narrow plot of reclaimed land at the southern tip of the new Jätkäsaari neighbourhood, a former freight port area just outside the city centre.
The new terminal was built to meet the needs of the growing ferry traffic on the Helsinki-Tallinn route. The goal was to enable faster embarkation and disembarkation of passengers and reduce the turnaround times of ferries in port to just one hour. The terminal will serve the majority of the 6-7 million passengers travelling between Helsinki and Tallinn via West Harbour each year.
Oodi represents a new era of libraries. The newly completed building in the heart of Helsinki consists almost entirely of public space and offers a wide selection of services. It will become the new central point for the city’s impressive public library network.
The design divides the functions of the library into three distinct levels: an active ground floor, a peaceful upper floor, and an enclosed in-between volume containing the more specific functions. This concept has been developed into an arching form that invites people to utilize the spaces and services underneath, inside and on top of it. The resulting building is an inspiring and highly functional addition to the urban life of Helsinki and the Töölönlahti area.
Software used: Revit, Autocad, Rhino, Grasshopper, V-Ray, 3dS Max
Client: City of Helsinki
Team at ALA:
Competition Phase: Competition phase: ALA partners Juho Grönholm, Antti Nousjoki, Janne Teräsvirta and Samuli Woolston with Aleksi Niemeläinen, Jussi Vuori and Erica Österlund, as well as Willem Barendregt, Martin Genet, Vladimir Ilic, Tiina Liisa Juuti, Julius Kekoni, Auvo Lindroos, Pekka Sivula, Pekka Tainio and Jyri Tartia
Implementation Phase:
Project Architect: ALA partners Juho Grönholm, Antti Nousjoki, Janne Teräsvirta (until 2015) and Samuli Woolston with Niklas Mahlberg
Interior Architect: Jussi Vuori, Tuulikki Tanska, Tom Stevens, Heikki Ruoho
Team: Nea Tuominen, Pauliina Rossi, Anna Juhola and Miguel Silva, as well as Michal Bala, Marina Diaz Garcia, Jyri Eskola, Zuzana Hejtmankova, Harri Humppi, Mette Kahlos, Anniina Kortemaa, Felix Laitinen, Malgorzata Mutkowska, T. K. Justin Ng, Marlène Oberli-Räihä, Olli Parviainen, Alicia Peña Gomez, Anton Pramstrahler, Jack Prendergast, Akanksha Rathi, Niina Rinkinen, Mikael Rupponen, Mirja Sillanpää and Pekka Sivula
Helsinki-based Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects have been given the green light to begin construction on a new facility which will bring all the offices of the City’s urban environment divisions under one roof. The new office complex will take a new approach to how Helsinki’s city planners, housing specialists and environmental designers tackle issues within the Finnish capital, replacing traditional work spaces with an activity-based work environment. The 41,000m2 new building will have its ground floor almost entirely open to the public, with customer service points, exhibition spaces and a restaurant. At the same time, the design of the rest of the building, primarily offices, puts a heavy emphasis on casual encounters between employees of different departments. Construction is due to begin in December 2017.
Tags: Finland, Helsinki Comments Off on Kaupunkiympäristötalo – A New Hub for Helsinki’s Urban Environment Departments in Finland by Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects
Showroom design, interior design and lighting event for professionals is organized second time in Helsinki Fair Centre 13.–15.9.2017. The event is collaboration between Helsinki Design Week and Habitare, the biggest interior design fair in Finland. We were asked to design exhibition architecture but we found the task very challenging as we always start from the site. The vast empty exhibition hall didn’t provide us with any starting points. We started thinking what the fair is all about. As all the information can be found in internet, what is the point of this kind of events? We concluded that the main point is the contact between exhibitors and visitors. This is why we focused on interaction between people instead of designing fancy physical exhibition structures.
UPM, the world’s second biggest forest company, leads the integration of bio and forest industries into an innovation-driven, resource-efficient future.
The main spatial element of the interior is the atrium, which allows for communication and gives the building an integral part of its identity. Adjacent to the entrance is a high cone-shaped gallery which enables product and art exhibitions and other small-scale events. Conference centre on the ground floor swirls around the atrium – guests are received in the bright café area in the lofty atrium. All workspaces, management included, are open-plan. The layout of the office floors is dynamic and enables impromptu brainstorming and one-on-one meetings for informal testing of new ideas “in statu nascendi”.
Easton Helsinki, a 66,000m2 shopping centre by Lahdelma & Mahlamäki is the first phase in a larger urban plan and looks to celebrate the identity and culture of Helsinki’s eastern districts. In its architectural and commercial concepts the project idealistically and physically centres itself around food, bringing together local vendors and businesses at the heart of the shopping centre. However, the project also holds a rich production history – it has been as much about process as it has about the final result. Centralised BIM models have formed the core of the workflow and design process since day one, a request of the client Kesko. Whilst shopping centres are inherently complex projects, workflow on all levels, from the design desks of individual end-users to contractors on-site, was managed through a centralised model; whether it be involving the façade system or the environmental conditions of individual shops.