Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Helsinki’s most famous and architecturally unique venue for conferences and other events, is now flanked by a wooden construction known as Little Finlandia. This is a joint project of the City of Helsinki, Finlandia Hall, Aalto University and FM-Haus, and its elements are built with Metsä Wood’s Kerto® LVL products.
The pavilion-like building, offering facilities for events and catering, is made 100% from Finnish wood and will provide temporary facilities during Finlandia Hall’s renovation until the end of 2024. The building covers approximately 2,000 m2 and can host events for up to 800 participants.
Little Finland has been designed by architects Jaakko Torvinen, Havu Järvelä and Elli Wendelin in collaboration with Professor Pekka Heikkinen and Architects NRT Oy and Arkitekturum Oy. The structural design of Little Finlandia was based on the possibility of reusing the building. Once the renovation of Finlandia Hall has been completed, Little Finlandia can be moved to other locations and used as temporary facilities for schools and daycare centers or for other renovation projects.
Little Finlandia is a superb example of Finnish wood architecture, blending effortlessly into its surroundings. It is also a frontrunner in wood construction, adhering to the principles of sustainability and the circular economy. Wood is a sustainable construction material, and the use of wooden modules enables the building to be flexibly adapted, ensuring it a long useful life. “Wood stores carbon throughout the building’s life-cycle. For example, the Kerto LVL (laminated veneer lumber) used in Little Finlandia has a carbon storage of 484.5 ton CO2 eq.,” says Lassi Moisio, Sales Manager, from Metsä Wood.
Little Finlandia was constructed from wooden volumetric modules, prefabricated by FM-Haus at its element factory in Jokioinen, 120 kilometers north of Helsinki. Modular construction has a considerable impact on the speed of construction compared with on-site construction.
“In the case of Little Finlandia, modular construction cut the on-site construction time to a third of the usual duration,” says Juhani Sjöman, Managing Director of FM-Haus.
Read more news about Metsä here.
Tags: circular economy, Finnish wood architecture, Jaakko Torvinen, Kerto® LVL, Little Finlandia, Metsä, Metsä Wood
Comments: