032 PROJECT 1
MAKING SPACE FOR home and school learning was a common feat many of us endured during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. Adaptations to spaces indoors and out were limited to what we could get online for home delivery and build with often self-taught skills. It consequently led to boom in e-commerce, with Nordic design brand, Finnish Design Shop (FDS), also experiencing rapid growth during its store closure period throughout the pandemic, thanks to its online sales. Such growth has resulted in a massive new building for the company as delivered by Helsinki-based practice Avanto Architects with its interior design by Studio Joanna Laajisto. Together, they have delivered a new space, which is also the new headquarters of the company, comprising a logistics centre delivering products to over 100 countries, a showroom, and a restaurant sited in the Finnish city of Turku.
The building was a design task challenge; the large-scale building is mainly formed according to the requirements of the automated robot warehouse inside, and there was no possibility to articulate the building with massing or roof form owing to its location near an airport. Whilst also sited next to the Turku city ring road, the client nevertheless didn’t want its location to limit the design to a ‘simple structure’, but instead to design a building representative of the company’s values of high quality and easy to approach design. Avanto Architects say: ‘Even though the building couldn’t talk about its use by its form, we didn’t want to design just ‘a decorated shed’ as described in the classic book Learning from Las Vegas. We found the concept for the building in the near surroundings. Right north from the building plot, there is a nature conservation area and the third biggest boulder from the ice age called the Devil’s Nest.’ A forest theme develops and is notable in the building’s facades, which use a three- dimensional pattern, hinting of tree trunks in a surrounding forest, whilst maintaining as many actual trees as possible on the plot. The area is landscaped with natural forest undergrowth and stones excavated from the site. The car park is divided into smaller units with green areas with domestic trees and vegetation found in the wild nature. The building’s large windows offer unobstructed views to the surrounding forest and there is direct access to outdoors both from the restaurant’s terrace, and from
PROJECT INFO Client
NREP IV FinCo 8 Oy
Architect Avanto Architects Ltd
avant.to
Interior Designer Studio Joanna Laajisto
joannalaajisto.com
Landscape designer VSU Oy
Size 12,129 sq m
Construction 2021
Completion Summer 2021
KEY SUPPLIERS
Architectural elements Studio Joanna Laajisto Lighting design
Studio Joanna Laajisto
Custom furniture Studio Joanna Laajisto
Showroom furniture Finnish Design Shop
finnishdesignshop.com
Right, clockwise Far from being simply an ‘elaborate shed’, the Finnish Design Shop is designed to have an interior that encourages exiting to the great outdoors just outside. The exterior is one that hints at tree trunks. It further includes large windows to offer unobstructed views to the surrounding wilderness and natural landscapes provided by a forest
Left The site has been landscaped to include as many trees and shrubbery as possible to meld with its surroundings
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