Designer's Viewpoint

Playing with Boxes

Various rounds of iterations were needed by Avanto Architects, when two detached houses were to be placed in place of a demolished one – while preserving the old stone fences, rocks and pines on the plot.

Designer's Viewpoint

Wood Architect on Fire

The British architectural practice Waugh Thistleton Architects wants to drastically increase the use of timber as a primary building material for new projects both in their homeland and abroad.

Designer's Viewpoint

Campus for Connections

JKMM Archtects designed a new head office for Kesko Corporation in Kalasatama, Helsinki. The activity-based environment encourages encounters between the employees – and the building itself also positions itself to encounter the new city district being built around it.

Designer's Viewpoint

The Urban Power Station

Kalasatama Electricity Substation provides electricity to approximately 20,000 people in the Kalasatama, Kulosaari, and Suvilahti districts in Helsinki, yet also aims to create an inviting space for the citizens – with a surrounding metal wall designed for graffiti art.

Designer's Viewpoint

Past and Future Luxury

The neo-Renaissance building in the Helsinki district of Ullanlinna has been has previously been used, among other things, as offices, but now the building has been restored to its original use as an apartment building.

Designer's Viewpoint

Culture in the Big League

Completed last year in Fuzhou, the cultural centre consists of five main functions: an opera house, concert hall, multifunctional hall, cinema and exhibition hall. Pekka Salminen, professor and architect, tells about the project and the activities of PES-Architects in China.

Designer's Viewpoint

An Office for the New Economy

Digital banking service Holvi decided to build new office premises in Elanto cooperative’s old headquarters in Kallio, Helsinki. The designers needed to create an image of what a new kind of bank could be, without forgetting the past.

Designer's Viewpoint

ALA partners: “The most inspiring architecture of the last century”

How did ALA end up planning the renovation of the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi? What is their relationship with the Pietiläs’ architecture?

Designer's Viewpoint

Tuning Up the Classic – The designers and the client talk about the embassy renovation

Photo Tuomas Uusheimo An architectural competition was held for the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi, India, in the 1960s. However, the embassy compound, built on the basis of the winning competition entry by Reima and Raili Pietilä, was completed only in 1985.