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Project Review — 1.2.2025

Where Can One Find Housing Reform?

The reform of housing construction often requires completed pioneering buildings. We asked Jyrki Tarpio, a postdoctoral researcher in housing design, to evaluate the apartment buildings presented in the Housing Reform issue (2/2025) that originate from Housing Reform architectural competitions and the City of Helsinki’s Re-Thinking Urban Housing programme.

Panel — 1.2.2025

What Did We Learn from the Previous Building Boom?

For the past couple of years, housebuilding has been stagnant across Finland. Homes built during the boom years that preceded the downturn have come under sustained criticism for their poor quality. What should the industry do differently when construction activity picks up again? We asked five architects to share their solutions.

Phenomena — 1.2.2025

Unique, Personalised and Urban Housing

When an architect or client sets out to build a multistorey residential building for their own use, the end result is often more intriguing than what is typically generated through ordinary housing production – for example, a home base for a theatrical community or a combination of a private home and an editorial office for an architectural journal.

Research — 1.2.2025

Towards Housing Design for Shared Living

Shared living challenges the established principles of what is considered good housing design.

Opinion Piece — 1.2.2025

On the Power of Communal Living

When it comes to communal living, our differences can foster a reciprocal relationship, where no one is there to purely provide or receive support.

Opinion Piece — 1.2.2025

Concept: Conviviality – “Convivial Spaces Draw People Into Encountering One Another”

While a community is typically based on a given shared purpose or interest, social interaction in general can also be centred around the simple objective of enjoying each other’s company. This is illustrated by the concept of conviviality, says Katja Maununaho.

Phenomena — 1.2.2025

A Realized Social Utopia

19th-century France and the small town of Guise, about 200 kilometres north of Paris, offer inspiration for concepts of more communal living.

Case Study — 1.2.2025

A Carpet’s Many Patterns

Between a detached house and an apartment building there is room for more diverse building typologies that both save space for nature and offer a detached house-like living experience.

Book — 1.2.2025

A Human-Sized Metropolis

Tokyo can offer valuable lessons on designing on a human scale, embracing the layers of a city, and grass-roots urban development.

Project Review — 1.1.2025

Cold and Warm

New premises have been built for a university of applied sciences adjacent to an events centre, in the Port of Kantasatama in Kotka.

Project Review — 1.1.2025

Bridge of Changing Values

The bridge designed by landscape architecture office Maanlumo creates a new urban space through the synergy of change and preservation.

Project Review — 1.1.2025

And Then There Was White

With the completion of the new office and hotel building, the dominance of red brick on the Katajanokka waterfront gives way to white.

Book — 1.1.2025

12,000 Years of Building Finland

A new general overview of Finnish architectural history incorporates prehistoric structures, the built heritage of Sápmi Region, and environmental aspects into the familiar story.

Editorial — 1.1.2025

Yet Another Monument?

The various development phases of the South Harbour in this millennium do not draw a very flattering picture of the ability of Helsinki’s urban planning machinery to solve such a tangle of problems, writes Kristo Vesikansa.

Book — 1.1.2025

Castle Towers in Helsinki

A book about Gustaf Estlander opens up the history of 28 Art Nouveau buildings in Helsinki.