Photographer: Tuomas Uusheimo | ArchDaily

Kirkkonummi Library / JKMM Architects

Collin Chen — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 19:00:00 +0000

Kirkkonummi is a municipality of 40,000 inhabitants near Helsinki built around its Medieval stone church. Facing the church, JKMM has transformed the old city library. Together with the nearby open market, the church and library create the civic centre of Kirkkonummi. JKMM have therefore emphasised the relationship of the library with the neighbouring church by designing a 50-metre long sheltered terrace overlooking the church yard. The copper shingle cladding of the new library, called Fyyri, also relates back to its maritime heritage setting.

Tammela Hybrid Stadium / JKMM Architects

Pilar Caballero — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Finland's first hybrid football stadium was completed in spring 2024 in the Tammela district of Tampere. The new stadium has been eagerly anticipated in the city. The project, which is a collaborative effort between the City of Tampere, Pohjola Rakennus, and JKMM Architects as part of an alliance, was in design and construction for over a decade. The stadium project covers 13,500 square meters and provides high-quality facilities for both residents' sports activities and top-level football experiences for 8,000 spectators. The stadium meets the main UEFA category 4 requirements, which means it can also be used for example UEFA Europa League and national team matches. Every seating position in the stadium offers an unobstructed view of the entire field. The stadium also accommodates 15,000 people for concerts and other larger events. The stadium is part of a nearly 50,000 square meter hybrid block, complementing the urban structure, which consists of eight interconnected plots, including the football stadium, five residential buildings, a commercial centre, and parking facilities.

Cities Need Care, Not Perfection: Rethinking How We Build the Urban Future

Olivia Poston — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000

What does optimism feel like in cities that can no longer rely on perfection as their ultimate ambition? Across the world, urban environments bear the weight of overlapping pressures: climate volatility, spatial inequality, political fragmentation, public distrust, and chronic infrastructural disinvestment. These realities render the idea of an ideal city increasingly detached from lived experience. Yet the hope for building better systems persists. While utopian visions may seem like an escape from the growing complexities of the modern world, the greater challenge for contemporary city-making is to confront those complexities rather than avoid them.

12 Cultural Spaces That Owe Their Power to Adaptive Reuse

Claire Brodka — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 04:00:00 +0000

When approaching the design of cultural spaces such as museums, performance venues, or places of research and study, architecture and design professionals often have to assemble pieces of a uniquely challenging puzzle in order to make the structure resonate with a variety of visitors and occupants. Hitting the right chord can be difficult, especially when trying to combine forms into a whole that pays respect to a building's intended use while being timeless in its universality.

Choreographing Space: Architecture and Dance as Interdisciplinary Practices

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0000

"Dance, dance… otherwise we are lost." This oft-cited phrase by Pina Bausch encapsulates not only the urgency of movement, but its capacity to reveal space itself. In her choreographies, space is never a neutral backdrop, it becomes a partner, an obstacle, a memory. Floors tilt, chairs accumulate, walls oppress or liberate. These are architectural conditions, staged and contested through the body. What Bausch exposes — and what architecture often forgets — is that space is not simply built, it is performed. Her work invites architects to think not only in terms of materials and forms, but of gestures, relations, and rhythms. It suggests that architecture, like dance, is ultimately about how we inhabit, structure, and emotionally charge the spaces we move through.

Katajanokan Laituri Wood Office and Hotel Building / Anttinen Oiva Architects

Hadir Al Koshta — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 03:00:00 +0000

Katajanokan Laituri is a solid wood office and hotel building that sets an example in the possibilities of wood construction in a sensitive urban environment. As the first new building on the formerly industrial Katajanokka waterfront that directly connects to Helsinki's iconic maritime cityscape, Katajanokan Laituri spearheads the transition of this embankment into an open urban space accessible to all. It continues the uniform, neo-classical silhouette of Helsinki along its southern waterfront, while the meandering shapes of its façade break its scale, connecting it to the diverse and layered building stock of the Katajanokka peninsula. A double-structure on the façade with an outer layer of glass, aluminum, and granite that protects the exposed wood structures from the maritime weather connects the building to the wider cityscape and gives it a unique character that changes with the time of day and the four seasons.

Chappe Art House / JKMM Architects

Andreas Luco — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 03:00:00 +0000

Chappe is a new three-storey art house by the sea located on the southern coast of Finland in the historic town of Tammisaari founded in 1546 and known for its timber architecture dating back to the 18th Century. A popular summer destination, Tammisaari punches above its weight in terms of its cultural offer with museums, galleries and a cinema dating from 1912. Located in the museum quarter in the heart of Tammisaari's old town, Chappe is a 1,210 sqm addition to this mix of cultural attractions. In fact, an essential element of JKMM's brief in designing the art house was to connect it to the existing art complex set in and around the regional Raseborg Museum. Physically, this is achieved through an underground link from the basement level of Chappe and through a shared museum garden. The Chappe Art House is focused on exhibiting contemporary art with a programme of two main exhibitions per year. Its name – Chappe – is derived from its founding donator Professor Albert de la Chapelle (1933–2020) whose support made this project possible. De la Chapelle was a medical doctor and prominent researcher in the field of molecular genetics in addition to being an avid collector of Nordic art. He grew up in Lindö some 20km from Tammisaari, so Chappe is very much a project that is rooted in the family's history. The Chairman of the Albert de la Chapelle Art Foundation, Henrik de la Chapelle says, "Chappe is an important addition to Tammisaari, bringing year-around cultural interest to a traditionally seasonal seaside destination and thereby making a significant contribution to both the social and economic vitality of the region."

Luola Sports and Events Centre in Savilahti / Architects Davidsson Tarkela

Valeria Silva — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

The Savilahti Sports and Events Centre, located on Neulamäki Hill in the developing Savilahti district of Kuopio, Finland, transforms a former Finnish Defence Forces depot into a versatile multi-purpose facility. The centre serves as a connection between a new residential area and the heart of the district, acting as a gateway to the adjacent park and local amenities. Designed to accommodate diverse user groups—including schoolchildren, students, sports clubs, and individual citizens—the centre is also a versatile venue for large-scale events such as concerts, seminars, tournaments, and major league or international sports matches. In addition, it functions as a shared civic shelter for nearly 7,000 people, ensuring safety and preparedness for the district.

Maatulli School and Kindergarten / Fors Arkitekter + Arkkitehtuuri ja muotoilutoimisto Talli + Blomqvist Arkitektur

Pilar Caballero — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Helsinki's new primary school and kindergarten are designed to harmonize with its natural surroundings. The design is informed by research indicating that an educational institution built from wood and closely connected to nature has a positive impact on children's mental and physical health. Maatulli School and Kindergarten, located in a lush park in Helsinki's Tapulikaupunki district, is home to 700 school pupils and 238 kindergarteners. The school is organized as a village of five wooden buildings, arranged around a circular green courtyard known as "The Forest Glade." The school and its outdoor learning environments seamlessly integrate into the surrounding park landscape, preserving the existing terrain and trees.

Helsingin Muurarimestari / AVARRUS Architects

Hadir Al Koshta — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Founding partners Pauli Siponen and Niilo Ikonen of Avarrus Architects had a common vision to create housing that would last for generations and set new standards in sustainability and resilience.

Summerhouse V / Playa Architects

Clara Ott — Sat, 06 Jan 2024 06:00:00 +0000

The summerhouse is located on a small rocky island of lake Suontee in southern Finland.There is an existing small fishing cabin built by previous generations in the 1960’s as well as a sauna building from the 1980’s on the island. When the fishing cabin became too small for the client family, the decision was made to build a new summerhouse that would better serve island living.

EUmies Awards 2024 Announces its List of 362 Nominees

Maria-Cristina Florian — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 05:30:00 +0000

The European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe have announced the 2024 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Awards (EUmies Awards) nominees. A total of 362 works of architecture realized over 38 different European countries have been selected, marking the first stage of the EUmies Awards’ 18th cycle. In the next stage, the jury will choose 40 outstanding projects, followed by visits to the finalists and interviews with the architects, their teams, and the project clients.

Event Center Satama / ALA Architects

Andreas Luco — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 12:00:00 +0000

The newly opened Event Centre Satama is located in Kantasatama, the oldest port of Kotka, just a couple of steps from the impressive Maritime Centre Vellamo, which has been standing in the port area already for 15 years. The events center shares its lot with the new campus building of the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, currently under construction, and a future hotel.

Courtyard by Marriott Tampere City Hotel / ALA Architects

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 12:00:00 +0000

The Courtyard Tampere City Hotel which opened at the beginning of 2020, is an elegant addition to the rapidly changing cityscape of Tampere in southern Finland. It shares its lot with the postmodern Tampere Hall concert and congress center completed in 1990.

Saukonlaituri Parking Facility / ALA Architects

Hadir Al Koshta — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 11:00:00 +0000

The City of Helsinki is redeveloping its former harbor areas for residential use. One of these areas, the vacated 100-hectare cargo port and dockyard in Jätkäsaari, right next to the city center, will, when completed, contain housing for 21,000 people and workplaces for another 6,000. As building all the required residential parking capacity underground, below sea level would be restrictively expensive, combined with the aim to reduce street-side parking, the city has commissioned a series of architecturally ambitious over-ground parking facilities to cover the residential parking needs in the neighborhood.

Ylivieska Church / K2S Architects

Pilar Caballero — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 03:00:00 +0000

The old historical wooden church of Ylivieska tragically burned down in 2016. The citizens of the small town were shocked and devastated. The local parish quickly decided that a new church building was needed to comfort and support the community. K2S Architects was selected to design the new church through an open architecture competition in 2017.

KN Next Office Building / SARC Architects

Andreas Luco — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Designed by SARC Architects, KN Next is the new head office for Fiskars Group and rises to become an entrance gate to Keilaniemi, a fast-developing area of Espoo in the Helsinki metropolitan area. A 9-story office building, the lower three floors serve as entrance, exhibition area, meeting hall, restaurant, and social spaces. The upper floors contain offices, workshops, and meeting rooms. On top, there is the social private area with a gym, café, and yoga space, all connected to a wide terrace. Below the ground level are located two car decks.

Villa Tervas / Sivén & Takala Architects

Andreas Luco — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 10:00:00 +0000

A retired couple from Kajaani wanted an accessible single-family home for their retirement days in the center of town. The small historical town of Kajaani is the most populous in the Kainuu region of Finland, over 550km north of Helsinki. Kajaani was founded in the 17th century when it was an important town for the pine tar industry, pine tar was used widely as a wood sealant for maritime and building construction. Still today the local economy revolves around trees; the sawmill, lumber, and paper industries.