Sunhouse - modern prefab homes from Finland

(image: copyright by Sunhouse)

Finnish Sunhouse offers modern prefab homes and summer houses.
I would be happy to see Finland full of these kind of modern houses :-)

It's amazing Sunhouse is not offering any material in English on their website. All models are made out of wood and designed by Finnish architects.

Superpop! in brand new wood pavilion Gösta

(image: copyright by Serlachius museum)

Gösta’s pavilion, a multifaceted wood building, offers modern spaces for art and visitors in Mänttä, Finland. Superpop! is Serlachius Museum Gösta's main exhibition in summer 2014.
The new pavilion shows the international classics of pop art side by side with the Finnish ones.

Superpop! contains about 130 artworks from 23 different artists that represent pop art in many different ways. The artists of the exhibition include Jiri Geller, Damien Hirst, Jani Leinonen, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and many others.

Art museum Gösta will be open in 14 June 2014.

Helsinki Allas - new outdoor complex is out there

(image: copyright by Huttunen Lipasti Pakkanen architects)

The 1st phase of Helsinki Allas is ready. Helsinki Allas contains urban garden and picnic area, cafe and Finnair Sky Wheel. Small curiosity of Finnair Sky Wheel is a VIP cabin. When you purchase the VIP package you will receive a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne and a prolonged flight experience in the VIP cabin. Cabin features a glass floor, leather seats, music and air condition. A lot of gigs and other events will be organized throughout the summer at Helsinki Allas area.

2nd phase of the project is planned to be open in the spring of 2015. Then the new outdoor sea pool complex with outdoor pools and saunas will be available. See the aerial image of the forthcoming complex in my previous blog post. Helsinki Allas is designed by Huttunen Lipasti Pakkanen architects.

More info:
www.helsinkiallas.fi
finnair-skywheel.com/en

Hotel Tegel invites to Fiskars Village

Brand new Hotel Tegel is situated about 1 hour drive from Helsinki. Hotel is in the middle of old Fiskars Village. 13 brand new rooms in an old building next to river are waiting visitors to Fiskars Village. Today there are over 100 artisans, designers and artists working or living in Fiskars Village.
The company Fiskars was founded in 1649 in Fiskars Village and has since become an international corporation. This year Fiskars is celebrating it's 365th anniversary.

More info: www.tegel.fi

Wood City is an urban quarter rising in Helsinki

 (Image by SRV)

Wood City is an eight-storey wooden urban quarter rising in the Jätkäsaari district of Helsinki. It will be the largest wooden quarter of its type in Finland, throbbing with residential, working and hotel life around its courtyard. On completion, Wood City will be a masterpiece of the latest wooden construction that will raise expertise in this field in Finland to international level.

More info: www.woodcity.fi

Helsinki Music Centre - Prelude

Finnish documentary "Helsinki Music Centre - Prelude" won the Grand Prize at the Montreal International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) this year. The documentary follows the construction of the Helsinki Music Centre.

Finnish company to design the Titanic II

Deltamarin, a Finnish company specialised in ship design, has been commissioned to design the new Titanic. The order was placed by Blue Star Line Pty Ltd. Blue Star Line has undertaken the task of building Titanic II, a replica of the original RMS Titanic, which is scheduled to sail from Southampton to New York on her maiden passenger voyage in 2016.

Titanic II project was announced by Australian billionaire Clive Palmer in April 2012, as the flagship of his cruise company Blue Star Line.

New outdoor sea pool complex and observation wheel coming to Helsinki

Katajanokka in the centre of Finnish capital Helsinki will be hosting a new outdoor sea pool complex Allas – Helsinki Pool. The new complex will offer swimming and saunas all year around as well as all kinds of activities. The facilities are planned to be open in the spring 2014.

The City of Helsinki has granted a building permit to an observation wheel to be placed on the Katajanokka waterfront in Helsinki’s South Harbour also. The permit allows the wheel to remain and operate at the waterfront to the end of October 2016.

Qatar interested in floating hotels from Finland

According to constructionweekonline.com floating hotels developed in Finland could help meet Qatar’s huge demand for accommodation for the 2022 World Cup.

Qatar is interested in the concept proposed by Finnish architecture firm Sigge Architects. Sigge has developed its floating hotel concept in conjunction with Finland’s Almaco Group, which specialises in marine construction.

More info:
www.sigge.fi
www.almaco.cc

Kalasatama Centre; EUR 1 billion project starts

The City of Helsinki and SRV signed the contracts relating to the implementation of Kalasatama centre, and the construction works will start.

Kalasatama Centre consists of six residential towers as well as a hotel and an office tower. The towers will have 20 to 33 floors, the highest being 126 meters high. The towers will house 86,000 square meters of apartments for approximately 2,000 inhabitants and 14,000 square meters of offices as well as a hotel of 10,000 square meters. Itäväylä road and metro line will be covered with a green deck.

Guess you have seen the earlier plans for the same Kalasatama area?

Wood City - a unique wooden construction project in Finland

Stora Enso plans to undertake a unique wooden construction project in Helsinki
called Wood City in collaboration with the construction company SRV.

The world-class project includes office, hotel and commercial buildings to be built of wood. The first buildings are expected to be completed in 2013 in Jätkäsaari area.

A high standard, internationally interesting and progressive plan for Wood City will be sought through an invitation-only design competition.

Wood City, the eight-storey high Bridport House in London, a shopping centre in Vienna and the Finnish Nature Centre Haltia are all real proof points of projects in which Stora Enso's building solutions have a key role, heralding the dawning of a new era of wood construction.

Cloud City

Helsinki is currently developing new sustainable methods for building the city. Primarily these projects aim at increasing density at the expense of urban sprawl. One question is how to make existing built areas denser, another where and how to build high risers. The Cloud City project is one possible answer.

More info:
www.cloudcity.fi

Helsinki tiloja - spaces

There are an enormous number of spaces in Helsinki that people normally do not see. Photographer Jussi Tiainen and architect Jussi Vepsäläinen have been travelling around downtown Helsinki taking a peep into some of these places. The list of lesser known but fascinating interioirs includes splendid works of architecture, industrial plants and qorkshops that service the City and its infrastructure. The subjects in the book extend from the highest points of the City down into the bowels of the earths; from the Cathedral clock-tower to undergroung pumping stations.

Helsinki tiloja - spaces book is published by Parvs Publishing.

OpenHouseHelsinki 2.-4.9.2010

OpenHouseHelsinki event is here again...

The objective of the OpenHouseHelsinki event is to open the doors to both the inhabitants of Helsinki and visitors from elsewhere to places which are normally inaccessible. OpenHouseHelsinki organises guided tours to interesting interior spaces, city districts, inner courtyards, as well as new and old architectural sites.

Finnish Wooden Boat Center

The Finnish Wooden Boat Center is an integrated 1.5 hectare area in Kotka’s Cultural Harbor, near the Maritime Centre Vellamo. The Boat Center’s appearance is dominated by the copper, arch-shaped roof of the boatyard (designed by architects Lahdelma & Mahlamäki). However, the Center also has a lot more to offer.

What makes the new building unique even on international terms is the fact that it was purpose-built for a wooden boat yard. Modern technology ensures temperature and humidity control as well as sawdust and dust removal. Another unique feature is the idea of a boatyard that is open for the public at no cost. The workshop is encircled by a Visitors’ Bridge at the second floor level, where the public can watch the boatwrights at work and observe the fascinating progress of boat-building. At the moment, the boatyard’s most notable attraction is the 21-meter-long classic wooden racing yacht Blue Marlin.

Don't miss the Wooden boat marina either. There you might see "Smuggler's boat (Pirtuvene)" and other rarities.

Architect Viljo Revell: "It was teamwork, you see" 13.2.–16.5.2010

Architect Viljo Revell's best known works in Finland include the Glass Palace in Helsinki, apartment buildings in Tapiola (Espoo) and the Vatiala Chapel near Tampere. Internationally he is renowned for the City Hall of Toronto, Canada.

2010 will see the centenary of Revell's birth and in honour of the event an exhibition of his works will be mounted at the Didrichsen Art Museum which he designed. This will show a selection of his buildings and projects through photographs, drawings, scale models and biographical information, as well as a documentary film based on original material.

The museum has published two books on Viljo Revell to coincide with the exhibition: Viljo Revell, "It was teamwork, you see" (Fi, Swe, Eng.) and Glimpses from Viljo Revell's life (Fi).

More info: www.didrichsenmuseum.fi

Finnisharchitecture.fi info portal is open

Launched in September 2009, finnisharchitecture.fi is a virtual information centre aimed at anyone interested in Finnish architecture. It also promotes Finnish architecture as part of Finland's cultural export. Available in English, it caters to international audiences, including public bodies as well as interested individuals.

The portal brings together the various agents operating in Finnish architecture, guiding visitors to their respective websites. Topical news feature events of international interest such as current overseas projects by Finnish architects. Visitors can search through practicing architects and offices, as well as architects of interest.

The virtual information centre is maintained by the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Alvar Aalto Museum.

Helsinki Seafarers center

Helsinki Seafarers center is an organic-shaped, wooden building in the new Vuosaari Harbor, in the eastern part of Helsinki. The building can also be visited by other than just seafarers. It is open every day, mostly in the afternoons and evenings.

It contains a chapel, multi-purpose space, a small library, sitting room, a café/shop, a laundry and of course a sauna. Important also is an outdoor patio with possibility for barbecuing in the warm season.

The architecture is very different from the rest of the buildings and structures in the new harbor.

Read more: Article by Arkkivahti blog

Image by Jussi Tiainen.

New seaside districts in Helsinki

The transfer of the Sörnäinen and Länsisatama harbours to Vuosaari and shutting down the Laajasalo oil harbour are setting into motion the biggest process of change in Helsinki in over a 100 years. These massive changes reminds me of Hafencity project in Hamburg.


In Hanasaari there will be five terrace buildings.

Kalasatama district

Moving the harbour away from the city centre provides the opportunity to completely transform the shorelines along Sörnäinen and Hermanni, as old industrial buildings, warehouses and harbour operations make way for modern office buildings and residential areas. Kalasatama will be planned for 18 000 residents and 10 000 jobs.

More info: City Planning Department of Helsinki


Länsisatama (West Harbour) district

Within the next couple of decades, the Länsisatama area will have been transformed into a waterfront city quarter with an estimated population of 22 000, which will enhance the appeal of central Helsinki and its services as a whole.

More info: City Planning Department of Helsinki




Kruunuvuorenranta district

The area presently occupied by the Laajasalo oil harbour will be free of the harbour operations by 2010. A new seaside housing district will be built on the site of the present oil harbour and the adjoining land. Kruunuvuorenranta will be planned for 10 000 residents.

More info:
The future neighbourhood of Kruunuvuorenranta (Exhibition)
18.6.-15.8.2009
Laituri

City Planning Department of Helsinki

"Villas and Saunas in Finland" by Harri Hautajärvi

Harri Hautajärvi's book "Villas and Saunas in Finland" presents villas and saunas from the marine archipelago via lake district to the fells of the north – a total of 44 individually-designed buildings that represent the best of recent Finnish summer home and sauna architecture. Harri Hautajärvi, former editor in chief of the Finnish Architectural Review, has selected the sites. They all differ from each other in interesting ways, ranging from simple log cabins to spacious villas. Each site is presented in detail through photographs and texts by the architects themselves.

(image: Venturo by architect Matti Suuronen)