-
Architects: Verstas Architects
- Area: 45400 m²
- Year: 2018
-
Photographs:Andreas Meichsner, Tuomas Uusheimo
-
Manufacturers: Pilkington, Wienerberger, Anstar, BASF, Purso, Steelpro
-
Lead Architects: Jussi Palva (Partner-in-Charge), Väinö Nikkilä, Riina Palva and Ilkka Salminen
Text description provided by the architects. The Väre Building at the Aalto University campus, designed by the award-winning Finnish bureau Verstas Architects, is a new type of education venue that combines design and business under the same roof. It is dedicated to the concept of doing things together. The building is a place for casual encounters and collaboration between students and teaching staff, for intense creation, teaching and research in creative and business fields. This cooperation is expected to foster new types of start-ups, companies and future talent.
The building complex is an unusual mix of functions. Besides housing the Aalto University School of Arts, Architecture and Design, and the School of Business, both high-ranking globally, it also includes the shopping centre ‘A bloc’ and is built above and accessed directly from the new Aalto University underground station. The ground floor lobby is open to the public. The complex has 45,000 square meters of space and hosts 1,850 students and 350 employees.
The Väre Building adapts to the cosy scale of its surroundings. World-famous architects Aino and Alvar Aalto's masterplan for the Otaniemi district in the 1940s created a village-like campus area. The new building complex is huge, but it is designed to appear as clusters of smaller buildings that have a comfortable scale – a principle reminiscent of Aaltos’ design for the old main building. The facades are red brick and patterned glass, and complement the existing campus architecture in a contemporary way.
The Väre Building forms a completely new square with the iconic, old main building. It brings together the main entrances to both university buildings, the underground station and retail spaces, thus adding a spot of urban bustle to the leafy campus. The square is the key new social space in the design.
The architecture of working together
The spatial layout supports interaction and flexible use of the building. “We have aimed to encourage encounters by placing workshops of different fields on the same floors and mixing staff and student spaces,” explains architect Jussi Palva from Verstas Architects. “In addition, students from the School of Business and the School of Arts, Architecture and Design have some courses together. This means that some of the spaces are very concretely shared. Users will meet in the squares, cafeterias, student galleries and various group working spaces, or simply on the stairs that are one of the main visual elements in the building.”
The building unfolds as a carefully planned spatial sequence. Rooms are arranged around interior courtyards that open views to all the floors and the stairs between them, which creates a sense of space. The public lobby stands out from the other spaces and helps users orient themselves in the building.
The building provides a variety of spaces for different learning situations. Project spaces and offices can be rearranged. New and innovative pedagogical and study methods might arise in the years to come, and they need to be met in a flexible manner. Verstas Architects believes that the contingent future must be taken into account already in today’s design.
