Page 2 Rhinoceros Oy Architecture HELSINKI-INFO Issue 1 – 2011 February 14 Contents Central Pasila competition 2 Climate information in Sanoma House 2 Winter city life 3 Architecture for tomorrow 5 Tackling major social challenges 5 Between Saarinen and Aalto 6 Aalto University poised to join world class 7 City Hall information services 8 Pasila looks for makers 10 Defined by railway 11 Competition to produce a unique concept 11 Glossary 12 Guggenheim Helsinki? Page 3 English Supplement for tomorrow
Transcript
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Architecture
Hels ink i - i n fo Issue 1 – 2011 February 14
Contents
Central Pasila competition
2 Climate information in Sanoma House
2 Winter city life3 Architecture for
tomorrow5 Tackling major social
challenges5 Between Saarinen
and Aalto6 Aalto University
poised to join world class
7 City Hall information services
8 Pasila looks for makers
10 Defined by railway11 Competition to
produce a unique concept
11 Glossary12 Guggenheim
Helsinki?
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for tomorrow
Helsinki Region cities and munic-ipal organizations have opened a new service for citizens, Ilmas-toinfo (“climate info”). The serv-ice is meant to motivate citizens to fight climate change and helps them with information to shift towards a low-carbon life-style.
Ilmastoinfo compiles informa-tion packages and provides prac-tical guidance to citizens and
The Kaisaniemi measuring sta-tion in Helsinki recorded 53 cm of snow in Helsinki on December 11. This was the thickest snow cover in Helsinki at that time of the year since 1965. In February there was snow up to 80 cm in the Helsinki-Vantaa airport measuring point.
The City can resort to special measures to accelerate snow removal in the inner city, if nec-essary to ensure traffic flow. Snow will first be removed from
small to medium-sized enter-prises. The service also serves consumers on the Web.
The Sanoma House information desk serves consumers from 11:30 to 17:00 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 11:30 to 19:00 on Thursdays, and 11:30 to 14:00 on Fridays. Access is through the entrance facing the Kiasma museum.
The service will be organizing various happenings in Sanoma House.
The new service provides a novel approach to everyman’s opportunities to effect change. The activities stem from the real-ization that small actions count when a large number of people commit themselves to change.
Climate information service on the Web
Climate information in Sanoma House Winter city life
streets used by public transpor-tation.
Drivers should avoid parking their cars on streets and should find alternative parking solu-tions, such as underground park-ing in the inner city. The use of public transportation is recom-mended, whenever possible
Drivers should take special care not to park their cars close to tram tracks.The safe distance from tracks is 80 cm and 140 cm in curves.
“The best results in Finnish architecture have been achieved with open competitions,” says Teemu Kurkela, a partner in JKMM Architects of Helsinki.
Kurkela looks to the past and the future. He calls for learning from the past and repeating tried and true recipes for success at this time when Helsinki faces more construction than ever before in the city’s history, following the move of vast harbour and industrial areas away from the city centre.
“Helsinki has a unique, once-in-a-lifetime oppor-tunity to transform itself,” Kurkela emphasizes.
JKMM, founded in 1998 by four young archi-tects, is today among the most successful architec-tural practices in Finland.
Architecture for tomorrowTeemu Kurkela of JKMM Architects talks about solutions to key questions of communities and how Helsinki can successfully redefine itself through architecture.
Teemu Kurkela
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The four partners of JKMM: (from left) Juha Mäki-Jyllilä, Samuli Miettinen, Asmo Jaaksi and Teemu Kurkela.
Cities brand themselves with architecture“In the past two decades, Helsinki has seen less world-class architecture than many other European cities,” Kurkela continues.
“The answer is open competitions,” he maintains, pointing out that open competi-tions have been behind such grand names of Finnish architecture as Alvar Aalto, the Pietiläs and Heikkinen-Komonen.
“Now is the time for Helsinki to organize competitions on projects in the new areas to reach the level of cities like Amsterdam.
“We also need opportunities for the young new talent in order to re-claim Finland’s place in the international architectural scene.”
Facing challenges of the future“Sustainable development is a ‘biblical’ theme today,” Kurkela deliberates, as he introduces the most recent win by JKMM: Viikki Synergy Building, an eco-efficient office building to be built in Helsinki’s Viikki district for the Finnish Environment Insti-tute. The competition was by invitation for a zero energy building.
Viikki Synergy Building JKMM Architects
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“There are lots of questions to be answered in how to achieve sustainability and a small carbon footprint in buildings,” Teemu Kurkela continues, pointing out that there are no set answers, but that the solutions are spe-cific to conditions and cultures.
The Viikki Synergy Building is built into a cultivated for-est that protects the building against the sun and storms. Solar panels produce much of the energy. The building makes use of natural light as much as possible. The building materials are largely wooden including those of the skin of the building, which is constructed with an age-old technique where the wood surface is left uncoated.
New Alma Media headquarters, JKMM Architects
If climate change is one big driver in soci-ety today, population aging is another.
“Architecture plays a major role in the solution,” Teemu Kurkela argues. “If we continue to operate according to the old systems and in the buildings built for those systems, change will not happen.”
JKMM-designed Housing for the Elderly, an assisted-living building realized with new concepts, is under construction in Viikki.
JKMM digs deep into the social sectors of Helsinki. They have partnered with Hel-sinki Deaconess Institute in a winning concept for a homeless people’s centre in central Helsinki. The firm recently won an invited competition for a daycare centre and school in Helsinki’s new Kalasatama district.
“The only way to effect real change in the social sectors is to recruit market forces to pay for the change,” Kurkela says. “It’s vital to create a positive cycle of change.”
The Töölönlahti area is Helsinki’s cultural centre flanked by Eliel Saarinen’s Railway Station and Alvar Aalto’s Finlandia Hall.
How do architects join icons like that?
JKMM is not shy to tackle the challenge. In late 2010 the firm won the design competition for the new Alma Media headquar-ters building, which will rise alongside the railway tracks on the eastern side of the area.
“Töölönlahti is as challenging as a site can be,” Teemu Kurkela comments. JKMM chose a time-less and classical style, rather than trendy architecture.
“The area now has very many types of architecture, and the buildings next to the railway yard are in an accompanying role to the rest. The new Helsinki Central Library will give new possibilities to define the area,” Kurkela says.
Between Saarinen and Aalto
Tackling major social challenges
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Aalto University poised to join world class
Teemu Kurkela accepted the professorship in Public Building at Aalto University’s Department of Architecture in August 2010. From his office, he looks at the task ahead of Aalto University to build itself into a first-class aca-demic institution by international standards.
Major themes at the Depart-ment of Architecture reflect those of society at large: sustain-able development, health care, and care facilities for the elderly.
Achieving excellence in these areas requires new structures at the department. “Currently there are no professorships in sustaina-ble development and health care architecture,” Kurkela explains.
The Aalto Department of Archi-tecture will begin its process of change by moving away from the Aalto Schools of Technology
to the School of Art and Design. In so doing Architecture will spearhead Aalto University’s efforts to put vision into practice.
“Innovations will happen when all disciplines are brought together, with technology, art and design, and economics all working together as one team,” Kurkela concludes.
Kirnu, the JKMM-designed Finland pavilion at Shanghai World Expo 2010, was major promotion for Fin-land owing to the building’s out-standing architecture. Kirnu (meaning “giant’s kettle” and inspired by the same) won first prize in an assess-ment of pavilion design at the expo.
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Established in 2010, the Aalto University is a new university with centuries of experience. The Aalto University was cre-ated from the merger of three Finnish universities: The Hel-sinki School of Economics, Hel-sinki University of Technology and The University of Art and Design Helsinki.
Aalto University School of Science and Technology has been divided into four new schools starting from 1st of January 2011. Aalto University is the university partner of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 initiative.
Students from the Department of Architecture have designed an information pavilion for Helsinki´s Design Capital year as part of their course work.www.aalto.fi/en/
Helsinki’s immigrant information service moved to the City Hall at the turn of the year and became part of the general information service Virka Info, which gained seven new staff members. A new workplace community was created which integrates diverse language skills and international know-how.
Turkish-born Necat Demirtas serves customers in Kurdish and Turkish. Ahmed Khalil, an
At your service
immigrant from Egypt, serves them in Arabic and English. Both speak fluent Finnish, as does Somalian Mohamed Abdillahi, whose languages also include Russian and English in addition to Somali.
Virka Info’s new clientele is diverse. The customers range from highly educated people to illiterate visitors who cannot be reached by web-based informa-
tion services. The move from the previous location in Itäkeskus has increased the number of phone contacts and, at least so far, has reduced spontaneous visits to some extent. Not everybody has found the new location yet.
Inna Lankinen emphasizes the need by immigrants for face-to-face communication even if their Internet skills are adequate.
“The situation is the same for all immigrants, in Finland and elsewhere,” Lankinen says. “They want to study their situa-tion in detail and to find out the consequences of different alter-natives. This is done best face to face.”
Lankinen learnt Finnish grow-ing up in Petrozavodsk, Russia, and also speaks Russian and Bulgarian.
Virka-info staff at the City hall. The group on the left: Ari Kallinen, Pia Martikainen, Ahmed Khalil and Inna Lankinen. The group on the right: Marja Saukkonen, Lotta Wir-maneva, Mohamed Abdillahi, Necat Demirtas and Hamed Shafae.Ev
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The redevelopment of Central Pasila (Keski Pasila) will give a centre and new identity to the district now cut in half by the railway.
The view is dramatic from the bridge that joins East and West Pasila, 15 metres above ground.
This is the site of the new Cen-tral Pasila. By the 2020’s the wind-beaten bridge will have been transformed into an ele-gant urban street lined by shops and cafés. To the south, there will be sculpturesque skyscrap-ers, parks and pedestrian ways. Rows of stylish logos will signal
Pasila looks for makersthe relocation of both domestic and international corporations to the area.
The City of Helsinki and the Finnish State as the main land-owner are collaborating in the redevelopment project to trans-form the valley separating East and West Pasila into a dense
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concentration of commerce, housing and services highlighted by public transport.
The blue area features the central block between East and West Pasila to be built after 2015. Scyscapers have been planned south of the cen-tral block.
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A new urban centre, located to the left of the Pasila Station, will form the core of the new Central Pasila.
The centre will be a major transport hub where pedestrian ways, bicycle paths and streets meet, and it will serve as a major transfer point between Helsinki’s public transport system and the national railways.
International appealSkyscrapers, exceptional in Hel-sinki’s overall cityscape, will tower over Central Pasila. Cino Zucchi Architetti, a Milan architectural firm, has pro-duced an impressive plan for ten 20–40 storey towers.
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Defined by railwayThe Pasila of today started to emerge in the 19th century around a railway.
Finland’s first railway line was opened in 1862, traversing Pas-ila, and a station was soon built in the area. A community in wooden houses emerged in Pas-ila around the turn of the cen-tury, on both sides of the railway.
The train depot was moved from the Helsinki city centre to Pasila in the late 19th century. Red-brick railway engine sheds were built next to the tracks.
The imposing red-brick struc-tures constitute the largest and architecturally the most valuable complex of its kind in Finland. The buildings now house offices and workshops.
The bridge combining East and West Pasila will be transformed into an elegant urban street.
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The City and the State launched a two-year competition process, Pasila One, in February 2011 to find an architect and implementator for the new urban centre in Central Pasila.
“This isn’t a normal architectural com-petition,” says Niina Puumalainen of the Helsinki City Economic and Planning Centre. “We’re looking for one organiza-tion or a consortium that can not only develop the site but also operate it.”
“The goal of the Pasila One competi-tion is to produce a functional commer-cial concept, which is architecturally of high quality,” she continues. The concept will serve as a basis of a plan for up to 140,000 square metres of new construction.
“We are seeking a uniform urban structure and a unique identity for Pasila,” Project Leader Timo Lepistö of the Helsinki City Planning Department explains further.
The competition of planning and imple-mentation of the central block of Central Pasila (Keski-Pasila) will be organized in stages and completed in spring 2013.
Construction is scheduled to commence two years later. If the project proceeds on target, the centre will be completed in 2023.
“The redevelopment of Central Pasila will increase the international appeal and competitiveness of Helsinki and the entire region,” Puumalainen and Lepistö sum up. “Central Pasila will be a promi-nent commercial district with jobs and good services. At the same time, it’ll be a pleasant residential area.”
Translated by Johanna Lemola
More onHelsinki’s new areas at en.uuttahelsinkia.fiPasila One competition at www.pasilaone.fi/en
Concurrent IndiaHelsinki art museum displays Indian contem-porary art this spring. In the exhibition Indian artists will tell about their country using strategies that range from the poetic and aesthetic to brutal social commentary and participatory art.
Most of the featured artists are women. In addition to feminist thematics, the works will address the impacts of globalisation and other pressures of change.
Tennis Palace, Salomonkatu 15 (near Kamppi metro station)4 March to 29 May , Tue–Sun 11–19
Helsinki has commissioned the Solomon R. Gug-genheim Foundation to explore the possibility of a new Guggenheim Museum in Finland.
The study, which is scheduled to be completed by the year’s end, will explore topics including the possible mission and structure of an innovative, multidisciplinary art museum in Finland, the form that its exhibition and education programs might take and its prospective relationship with Helsinki’s existing visual arts institutions.
Beginning from a deep consideration of program and purpose, the study will seek to imagine what a museum of the 21st century might be.
Mayor of Helsinki Jussi Pajunen stated, “As the cap-ital of our country and home to its greatest concentra-tion of art museums, Helsinki has a special responsibility to keep improving and developing Finland’s cultural infrastructure.”
Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum stated, “Finn-ish people are reluctant to boast. So let me be the one to say that Finland is unquestionably poised for a greater role within the world’s cultural scene.” The Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Helsinki?exhibition
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Helsinki Info is a printed newspaper published by the City of Helsinki and distributed to all Helsinki households six times a year. Helsinki Info’s English Supplement resembles the main publication in format but is published online on the City Website, also six times a year.
Next issue 28.3.2011
Publisher: City of Helsinki www.hel.fi
Editor-in-Chief: Rita Ekelund Phone (+358 9) 310 36074 City of Helsinki, Communications P.O. Box 1 FI-00099 City of Helsinki, Finland Graphic design: Guassi Oy
Information for all residentsVirkaInfotelephoneservice(09)31011111(Mon-Fri9–15)andinformationpointintheCityHalllobby,addressPohjoisesplanadi11–13(Mon–Fri9–19,Sat–Sun10–16).www.virka.fi
