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Architects: Playa Architects
- Area: 3680 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Tuomas Uusheimo
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Lead Architects: Tuukka Vuori, Hannu Salmi, Veikko Ojanlatva
Text description provided by the architects. The project is located in Kauniainen, Finland. The terraced residential building is low-cost state subsidized rental housing situated next to the Koivuhovi train station. The height of the building varies from two to five floors as it climbs the steep site. The façade is also stepped to break down the scale even further and to provide extensive views from the balconies. Thus the building adapts both to the terrain and the smaller scale surroundings.
The difficult site is also evident in the plan of the building. The building is divided into three different parts reflecting the requirements of the site. Building entails apartments accessed from a stair core, an external single-loaded corridor, and apartments with their own front door. Some two-floor apartments also include a lower ground floor level work/living space with its own entrance. The workspaces open up to a small courtyard on the street side and are marked with yellow sunshades to liven up the ground level.
Each apartment has a large balcony, glazed or both glazed and unglazed. There is a communal space on the ground level and a communal sauna on the top floor.
The building is characterized by the extensive balcony wrapping around the building and the pointy “mitre” of the eaves line which marks both the corner and the intersection. The facades are mostly of precast white concrete and concrete walls painted in metallic champagne colour which changes subtly according to the lighting conditions and seasons.
