During the next decade, a new district will be built in Viikki, some 8 kilometres north-east of Helsinki city centre, comprising blocks of flats for 13,000 inhabitants and some 6,000 workplaces. Viikki’s identity derives from the University and Science Park, the fine and varied landscape, the area’s excellent recreation opportunities, and environmental awareness. The University of Helsinki will centralise all teaching and research in biosciences and biotechnology in Viikki; the present student volume of 3,500 will be doubled in ten years. The university departments will be surrounded by a Science Park focusing on biosciences and also including R&D units of the private sector. The Science Park will become the centre of Viikki with a shopping mall, public services such as a library and a winter garden, and flats. A good public transport service will also be organised to both the city centre and elsewhere in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Light traffic routes will connect the various parts of Viikki to one another and to the surrounding city.
Viikki has an old cultural landscape. The fields have been cultivated since the Middle Ages, and cultivation still goes on today on the University’s Experimental Farm. The field valley is bordered by wooded hills, and in the south the area is connected to the valuable nature reserve of Viikki and Vanhankaupunginlahti bay.
The aspiration to environmentally conscious building was registered when drafting the component master plan. The goals mainly concerned the residential and recreational areas owned by the City, but the University has followed the same guidelines in their projects.
Towards more ecological building trends
The development towards more ecological building in the residential area began when the City of Helsinki made a cooperation agreement with the Eco-Community Project, a joint project by the Ministry of Education, the Technology Development Centre TEKES, and the Finnish Association of Architects SAFA. Two planning competitions were organised in order to find ecological ideas. The competition area comprised the southern part of the residential area of Latokartano. The first competition aimed at finding an ecological town plan. The winning entry by Petri Laaksonen represents a model where building and nature are interwoven. The town planning proposal for the area was drafted on the basis of the winning entry.
It has been typical of the development of Finnish building and particularly experimental building that the target level is high at first, but the closer the realisation and contact with hard facts, such as costs, become, the lower the target level falls. Despite general approval of the aim, it seemed that ecological building would not receive any considerable financial support. Therefore the planning had to be based on realistic and achievable goals, and of these it had to be ensured that at least the basic level was met. The basic goal was to find general ways to develop urban residential areas in an ecologically sustainable direction.
The second competition concerned realisation. The purpose of the invited competition was not only to find plans and architects for blocks and buildings but also developers and companies willing to promote ecological products and innovations. The winning entry was by Arkkitehtitoimisto Hunga-Hunga, with the developer VVO Rakennuttaja Oy. Based on the competition, sites were reserved for six participating groups.
An ecologically sustainable area cannot be created as a result of single experiments; instead environmental considerations should be integrated into the entire plan. Criteria assessing the ecological aspects of building have been set in several countries, England’s Breem being one of the best-known of them. In Finland there are no such criteria; eventually Viikki received its own criteria, Pimwag. They are divided into three levels and can be used to assess building projects from five different angles:
° pollutants (C02, wastewater, site debris caused by construction, domestic waste, ecolabels);
° natural resources (fossil fuels/purchased heating energy, purchased electric energy, primary energy, the convertibility of living area floor plans, the communal use of spaces, and the multi-purpose use of spaces);
° healthiness (indoor climate, moisture risk control, noise, the windfree and sunny qualities of the site, alternative floor plans);
° biodiversity (plant choices and habitat types, storm waters);
° nutrition (plantings, soil).
The site reservation conditions and building regulations drafted for the area required that all the sites reach the basic level of the criteria. The basic level had to be defined so that extra costs of up to about five percent would be approved by the Housing Fund of Finland. Reaching the basic level with regard to purchased heating energy, for example, corresponds to a saving of 34 percent in comparison to a normal project. Each project will also be given a total score based on the criteria and this will be made public. It seems now that the basic level will be surpassed and the project will reach an average level of one point in the criteria, which means, for example, the saving of 47 percent in purchased heating energy.
The drafting of experimental building programmes was required of each project. Experimental building is enabled by the new financial aid for R&D from TEKES. The items in the experimental building programmes include energy saving in various forms; active and passive use of solar energy; healthy indoor climate; the convertibility of flats; the convertibility of elevations; the development of wood construction; resident-integrated planning; and so on. The European Union supports the joint solar energy project by Helsinki Energy and the developers of the apartments in the area in which approximately a third of the warm water for domestic use in 400 flats is heated with solar panels.
The ecological projects of the City of Helsinki are targeted at public buildings, street and park construction, and technical maintenance.
The area and its milieu goals
The ecological area comprises flats for some 1,700 residents, basic services, and space for working and hobbies, which increases the quality of living conditions. The small centre of Kevättori (‘Spring Square’) forms the functional core of the area, its meeting point and symbol. In its vicinity there will be the school, day care centre, grocery store, multi-purpose spaces, sports field, and bus stop. In Kevättori there will later also be the residents’ club building, a small ecological model house with an exhibition space. Other necessary services will be situated in the Science Park and Viikki service centre, within walking distance.
Flats will be offered to various households according to Helsinki policy. Building types vary from five-storey blocks of flats to two-storey semi-detached houses. The focus is on family flats, but small flats will also be built.
A car-free area was not considered possible, even though public transport connections are good. The car parking requirement corresponds to a half of the usual requirement in suburban areas. Extra parking places will be built if residents need them. Parking place costs will be separated from flat prices and targeted at those residents who need parking places.
Building regulations for the area have been drafted to specify the milieu goals and ecological requirements of the area.
The town plan creates a basis for compact and small-scale development. The buildings lining the streets - not placed around yards as usual in Finland - resemble the Danish ‘taet-laev’ milieu. The goals concerning indoor climates and energy saving are visible in the wind baffles formed by vegetation, the southerly direction of the buildings, and the buffer zone of southern elevations, which is formed by the glazed balconies, greenhouses, or terraces connected to each apartment. Solar panels have usually been integrated onto the roof structures. The initial goal was the generous use of the Finnish ecological material, wood; however, the sprinkler requirements in the new fire regulations became a financial obstacle. The houses lining the streets open to traffic will mostly have rendered facades, but inside the circle of blocks of flats, along the residential streets, the proportion of rendered surfaces decreases and is replaced by wood as the buildings get lower.
It is characteristic of the town plan that nature and building are interlaced. The ‘green fingers’ penetrating into the block structure enable small-scale cultivation and the reclamation of storm waters and compost humus. The dialogue between building and nature indeed forms a significant milieu factor. This is seen in the juxtaposition of residential street and green finger, for example. The residential streets act as the spatial and functional backbones of the surrounding blocks to which the communal spaces of the buildings are mostly connected. The residential streets are built as paved urban spaces lined by buildings and structures. The tree species used is the tall aspen which marks the residential streets in the landscape. The green fingers form the open green areas lined by trees and bushes. They will be filled with the residents’ garden allotments which are interconnected by narrow gravel paths and surface water hollows.
The Viikinoja river, now flowing straight through the field areas, will be rerouted between the new residential blocks and the open recreational area. It will be reshaped as a natural stream to later form, together with the hygrophytes, a new green edge lining the open landscape and will also function as a wind baffle. Small pools and hygrophytes will also cleanse drainage waters before they flow into the Vanhankaupunginlahti bay. The pedestrian bridges crossing the Viikinoja river will be experimental wooden structures and eye catchers.
The starting point for the planning of green areas was the preservation of the characteristics of the Viikki cultivation landscape, the vast open views and the vegetation lines; the geometry of the fields provides a starting point for the form language of the new park features.
From goals into reality
Building in the ecological area will begin this year and the entire area will be finished for the most part in 2002. The follow-up will provide assessment of the results and enable conclusions concerning the development of environmentally conscious building. The experience will be used in the building of the new areas in Viikki. The area has aroused interest among the potential residents: only a small part of those who had applied for the resident-integrated planning site organised by the Helsingin seudun asumisoikeusyhdistys (‘The Helsinki Area Right of Occupancy Association’) could be included. In what respect the ecological area differs from a regular area, is the question frequently being asked.
The main ecological goals in Viikki concern the saving of natural resources and energy, emission and waste reduction, and a healthy, reparable, and lasting living environment. These are the general goals that the government set for all building when approving the national programme of ecologically sustainable building early this year. A number of the goals, for example energy saving, also depend on residents’ commitment and activity. for environmentally conscious people it can be valuable as such to live in an area where the Kyoto Treaty is being followed. Yet it is a vain hope that people will commit themselves if there are no environmental values or opportunities to initiate action.
Invited by the City of Helsinki, Dutch Professor of City Planning Helga Fassbinder evaluated the new residential areas of Helsinki last year. She noted the high average standard of residential areas and building, but also the similarity of the areas. Several large coherent residential areas have been built during the past decade in Helsinki. Alternatives in surroundings and lifestyle have mostly been offered by the area’s location in the City Centre or a suburb and the dominance of small houses or blocks of flats. People have such different expectations - perhaps mere good living surroundings are not enough any longer. Interest in the ecological area seems to imply the need for alternatives in the contents. There are people who want to live in an area which supports their lifestyles and attracts neighbours of the same spirit.

Riitta Jalkanen