Kampin Helmi Senior Housing

Helsinki, Finland

Photo © Tuomas Uusheimo

Photo © Asko Takala

Photo © Tuomas Uusheimo

Photo © Asko Takala

Architects: Kirsti Sivén & Asko Takala

Location: Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 30, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Year: 2016
Team: Kirsti Sivén, Asko Takala, Markku Hietamaa, Anna Juhola, Heidi Turunen, Milja Nykänen, Stefan Vara, Alex Torres, Kaisa Savolainen, Annamari Vesamo, Eliane Leuzinger, Tatu Pärssinen, Tuula Nurmi

“The cream-white housing complex for senior citizens with 93 rental apartments occupies its extremely difficult site with grace and elegance.
Kirsti Sivén, Asko Takala and their team make an attractive mark on the townscape with delicate handling of the building volumes, calmly functional spatial design and unpretentious composition of the façades.
The building is contemporary and site-specific, but still retains an aura of familiarity.” – Finnish Architecture 2018

“The jury was impressed by the way in which the efficient building contributes to the urban context without sacrificing the good standard and practicality of the floor plans. Before the building was erected, the place had no identity of its own: the small plot rested on residual land fenced away from the neighbourhood by two arterial roads and the Baana bike line that carves through the old railway shaft beneath street level. This location has a prominent position as a city boundary within a landscape of long, sweeping perspectives.” – Extract from the jury report from the Finnish Architecture Biennial Review 2018