Posts filed under “Architecture”
Espoo Venice!
With a lot less exposure than the Central Library competition but with much potential the city of Espoo has launched a competition for a masterplan of Finnoo-Kaitaa for 20,000 people. There has just previously been a masterplan report made (download pdf here ) by WSP Finland who won the Helsinki 2050 competition a few years [...]
Imre Makovecz
So I just found out that Imre Makovecz the Hungarian Architect had died a few months ago. I wrote my first dissertation on him back in ’92 -´93. In the Summer of 1992 his office was one stop for me on my Eurorail tour. I went to his studio one day, looked round the [...]
Timber Construction
Certainly Housing Construction in Finland has a few characteristics that most definitely don’t set it apart from other countries. It is conservative, standardised and utilises prefabrication and concrete to a large degree. Some things are harder to change than others but one thing that just might be changing for the better is in the replacement [...]
Timber Construction in Finland
Congratulations go to Sitra and HDL there for helping to reshape the fire regulations in Finland. Previously although Finnforest has a 5-storey office and there are some 3 to 4 storey buildings with wooden frames in Finland you couldn’t really go higher. But now the revision of the regulations has prompted SRV and Stora Enso [...]
A Real Eco City of the Future
There are other eco cities much talked about at the moment Masdar city or Dongtan to name a couple off the top of my head but Hammarby Sjöstad, a redevelopment in Stockholm Sweden is not one of them. It started out as a redevelopment of an old, barely legal, and much contaminated industrial area, part [...]
Guggenheim Redux
A couple of bloggers I follow report on last weeks interview in HS about the Guggenheim proposal in Helsinki. JHJ & Arkkivahti. Following on from my post about the Guggenheim, its clear that the city are serious. But if I was to make a crazy guess it would be that the Katajanokka site, important and [...]
Serlachius Competition Results
The art gallery Serlachius has just announced the reults of it’s international competition for a new gallery wing. MX_SI studio from Spain won with a really beautiful and tasteful entry. The results pdf is worth reading as there were quite a few good entries. I knew a few people who entered and they both put [...]
Conformity and Experimentation in Architecture some notes
Three weeks ago I attended my office Spring day at the Dipoli1 building in Otaniemi. It was my first time visiting this slightly less well known Finnish design classic. At the time it was built it was apparently controversial and a ‘brave’ building. I couldn’t really see it form the outside. It has a kind [...]
South Harbour Competition
The south Harbour right at the centre of Helsinki is subject of an open international design competition running until september of this year, see southharbour.fi. This is the most difficult, controversial area to develop in Finland at the moment. Most everyone agrees that it needs a major overhaul but what to do? Since the Herzog [...]
Locating the Guggenheim
So the news that Helsinki and the Guggenheim foundation are making a feasability study together to bring a Guggenheim to Helsinki has had a little time to sink in. Allowing first reactions to fall away and think about the different scenarios that a Guggenheim coming to Helsinki might produce will not only help shape our [...]
Brixton Windmill
I lived in London relatively close to the Brixton Windmill for some time, and tried to visit it once. In those days it was in a pretty bad state, but today it is restored and back running (on electricty!) or at least the sails are going round. The last in a chain of Windmills that [...]
The Secret Life of Stone
by Graham Dunstan Martin Homage to Bachelard (1884-1962) Architecture has at least two sides: it’s a science; and it’s one of the arts. It’s akin to technology; and it’s akin to poetry. This is why architects find Gaston Bachelard’s books interesting. He was Professor of Philosophy of Science at the Sorbonne and the rational & [...]
Berlin Dip (Index)
Our Office went on an Architectural trip to Berlin in the Autumn and I have started to sort out my photos and impressions of the city, with the idea of posting some of these things over the coming weeks. Overall impressions of the city though were great. I saw a city which has a life [...]
Allure of the Seas
The STX shipyard in Turku, Finland has just delivered the world’s largest cruise liner ever built. Called The Allure of the Seas it’s capable of housing 6,300 passengers and 2,100 staff, and at approximately five times the size of the Titanic, it is in effect the largest self contained mobile town in the world. Everything [...]
Libeskind in Tampere
Daniel Libeskind has been chosen to design the new Tampere central arena, this follows on from his masterplanning of the arena and business park and commercial deck for the centre of Tampere which he had already made. Foreign Architects have really not had an easy time of building in Finland although some competitions have been [...]
Finnish Architecture 0809
Finnish Architecture stages a Biennial Exhibition of the best in Finnish Architecture and this year 0809 starts its tour in Helsinki before going around the globe. It’s a good chance to look at some great projects, photos and models, step back and survey the progress made and the potential going forward. The exhibition catalogue this [...]