Home > Magazine > Issues > #40 Jul/Aug 2011 > Mixed-use building, Helsinki

Mixed-use building, Helsinki

Mixed-use building

HELSINKI (FI) - Despite its 64-metre height, ALA's Cloud City in Helsinki's Punavuori district is supposed to be almost invisible.

Cloud City is a mixed-use development proposed by ALA architects and Dutch investor ING. The site, located in the southern Helsinki district of Punavuori, is the courtyard of a heritage-listed industrial building – an 80-year-old former Nokia cable factory, now containing mostly offices and businesses.

The new building, a metal and glass structure, thrusts upwards like a trumpet mushroom and mirrors distorted images of the surrounding brick facades. On the ground floor is a café; above this are the office spaces, concentrated around the vertical circulation core and topped by a platform at the level of the surrounding rooftops. The housing units are piled on top of this 'tray' like whipped cream on top of a meringue cake. Their box-on-box structure is reminiscent of the Montreal Habitat housing; the apartments are more like small houses with glass-railed balcony-terraces.

The two different 'architectures' of the offices and housing cannot be seen at the same time; from the courtyard you see only the offices, and from outside only the apartments. The architects have made videos to prove that the pile of flats will not cast too much shadow on neighbouring streets and houses. The renderings show a very light, fragile and delicate 'cloud', which is supposed to be reflective and almost invisible. Other drawings in ALA's publicity kit compare the design to structures and buildings of similar height in Helsinki to prove that Cloud City's 64 metres is not too high.

June | 2011 | Finland | Tarja Nurmi