Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2018 | Page 37
middle of Finland’s prime growth corridor
– Hämeenlinna also offers great accessibil-
ity and connections,” he adds.
Deputy Mayor Juha Isosuo comments
that as Hämeenlinna was founded in 1639,
it was very much built around the town
square and the lake was not in a major role
for a long time. Later on, various industrial
pursuits blossomed along the shorelines, but
little value was seen in them otherwise.
“Finally, as a focus in urban planning
has turned to issues such as residents’ qual-
ity of life, nature values and aesthetic con-
cerns, the value of the waterfront has been
fully recognized,” he says.
Engelinranta Emerging
An important piece in the City’s water-
front plans is the development of Enge-
linranta area. Located right in the down-
town area, the Engelinranta shoreline holds
90,000 floor square metres that is available
for development.
The First project in the pipeline is the
so-called bus station quarter (appr. 15,000
square metres) and a planning competition
was hosted to gather ideas for its develop-
ment. Rakennuskartio Oy of Lehto Group
won the competition with its entry ‘Lohkot’
(Blocks).
Kristiina Koskiaho, Managing Direc-
tor of City development company Hämeen-
linnan Eteläranta Oy, says that the plan is to
preserve the old bus station and build new
residential office premises in the area, along
with a new hotel.
“In the two-phase competition, citi-
zen participation was used in an unprece-
dented way. About 500 Hämeenlinna resi-
dents were involved in the process and hun-
dreds of comments were given to the com-
panies in the contest,” she says, adding that
residents’ input was also visible in the final
competition entries.
“The bus station quarter will be the
very first project of this magnitude that fea-
tures such strong co-creation with residents.”
Functionally, the development of the area
will improve the cityscape to the south. “This
is a great kick-off for the development of the
shoreline and the city centre,” she believes.
Koskiaho comments that the buildings
themselves will feature high-level architec-
ture – that’s given – but there also needs to
something extra:
“In this project, we’re looking for a
high-quality, visual outcome that is a good
fit for the city’s development strategy.”
Koskiaho says that the level of the
competition entries was very convincing,
sending a signal that Hämeenlinna is seen
as a promising community. She believes that
the city is quite attractive especially to those
real estate players who are looking for alter-
natives outside the Helsinki Metropolitan
Area and Tampere.
“It is clear that Hämeenlinna has a lot
of potential that remains untapped.”
Floating Future
Hämeenlinna wants to encourage a certain
atmosphere of experimentation in its “reclaim
the shores” strategy. One example of this
approach was the inclusion of public art in
the competition parametres: the competition
participants had to come up with ways to spice
up the neighbourhood via aesthetics, too. Talking about the waterfront, the City is
apparently quite flexible with regards to
the types of buildings that could be raised
by the shoreline: residential construction
is the priority, but also business premises
can be included in the proposals. The wild
card in the deck is “floating city”: Engelin-
ranta could feature as much as 5,500 square
metres of construction off-shore, built on
floating islands.
Koskiaho points out that floating
According to Sirola, there are really
no limits to what you can accomplish with
floating construction. For example, sports
and leisure centres, utility buildings, offices,
restaurants, nightclubs, shopping centres
and private homes can be constructed “off-
shore”.
Actually, you can even make swim-
ming pools and put them on the water.
Case in point: the Allas Sea Pool marine
spa which opened next to the Market Square
in Helsinki in the autumn of 2016. The idea
was to open more of the capital’s precious
shoreline to the public via an innovative con-
cept which allows for year-round use.
“As Allas was launched, we received
a lot of positive feedback. It gives a great
boost to the entire shoreline,” Sirola says,
adding that Allas has attracted interest in
the other Nordic countries, and globally, for
instance, Australia is “in the loop” as well.
For Sirola’s company, leisurely pur-
suits remain the number one application for
floating con struction, with residential solu-
tions coming in second. However, as people
get more comfortable with the idea of living
on the water – and there are experiences to
be shared – the trend may catch on quick.
For Sirola and her team, the core in
all of the work lies in the needs of the cus-
tomers and the end-users. “We want to cre-
ate solutions which improve the usabil- ity of the waterfront areas in a variety of
ways. Through this, both residents and vis-
itors gain access to new activities and expe-
riences.” l
Make It Beautiful
Do the Water Dance
M
anaging
Director and
Co-Founder
Tytti Sirola from Bluet
Ltd believes that float-
ing construction will
be a big international
phenomenon, because
cities, companies and citizens are strongly
gravitating towards waterfront areas. “As
a result of this, the land areas that can be
developed are in short supply. However,
when you utilise floating construction solu-
tions you can do so much more.”
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