Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2012 | Page 43

makeover, also energy efficiency will improve by leaps and bounds. As the centre is
planned as one entity from the beginning,
there are considerable energy savings to be
achieved. The area will also feature a mass
district cooling system – first of its kind in
Espoo.

Otaniemi Gets Creative
Otaniemi is another area standing on the
brink of a new era. As the innovation campus gets going, Otaniemi is likely to add architecturally ambitious landmark buildings
into the campus. After all, the area has a
proud legacy to uphold as the key buildings
have been designed by Alvar Aalto himself.
The City of Espoo is very much involved here, as well. For instance, the City
is looking to realise a new kind of student/
researcher residential community, Aalto Village, in Otaniemi. Together with her partners, the City of Espoo wants to introduce a
brand new living concept which encourages
students and scientists to network and participate in the development of the entire neighbourhood. The innovation village will feature premises for both study and community interaction. Great traffic connections and
information technology solutions will provide an additional dynamic boost.
By building Aalto Village, the City
of Espoo and the Aalto University are also tackling a pressing problem, since Aalto does not have enough apartments for students and researchers. The village concept
will provide at least a partial solution to
the dilemma and will hopefully be popular
among international students and researchers, as well.
There is plenty of action in the neighbourhood beyond Aalto University, as well.
In fact, Otaniemi is the biggest hi-tech hub

Get on the Electric Bus

I

n addition to metro, Espoo is interested in spearheading the cause of greener
public transportation in other areas as well. One such project is multi-partner effort E-Bus which aims to find out if electric buses could to handle for
example feeder traffic to the metro stations.
In the background, there is Espoo’s vision that electric public transportation could be utilised in e.g. Tapiola-Otaniemi-Keilaniemi area and Suurpelto.
In addition, the emerging Finnish e-vehicle cluster benefits from such efforts,
creating new opportunities for business.
The E-Bus project is going to launch an internationally significant testing platform for vehicle manufacturers to test, study and develop electric buses for public transportation. The testbed is expected to be demanding, given
the cold conditions of the Finnish winter, for instance.
Already the project has raised eyebrows among the vehicle manufactures
and other stakeholders. At present, the framework for the project is such that
the bus battery should allow for a minimum of 50 kilometres before recharging. The buses in questions should be 8 to 12 metres in length.

in Northern Europe with its 32,000 people
and 800 companies.
Otaniemi creates between 40 to 70 new
startups every year, pumping new blood into
the Finnish business scene. According to experts, nowhere in the Nordic or Baltic States
can one find another brain concentration like
Otaniemi. The closest match seems to be
Berlin’s Adlershof, 1,200 kilometers away.

Keilaniemi Aims High
Of course, Otaniemi is very intimately
linked with Keilaniemi which is the corporate engine for the entire country. High-rise
buildings are pretty much the norm here, offering a spectacular skyline to those driving
to Espoo from Helsinki. The hi-tech corporate neighbourhood is waiting for a metroline to make the lives of the employees more

easier, but the metro extension is expected to spark residential construction as well.
According to the master plan, Keilaniemi could soon feature four housing towers with 27–35 storeys each, reaching 100
metres. The area in question would include
almost 80,000 squar