Atrain Housing Block is located in Verkkosaari, a former industrial port area in Helsinki. This visually unified residential block is divided into five sites and three different housing ownership companies. One of which is owner-occupied, the second is right-of-occupancy housing, and the third is state-subsidized rental housing.

Names like Verkkosaari (net island) and Kalasatama (fish port) have played a big part in remembering the seagoing history of the area. A Helsinki tradition from the 19th century, to give city blocks individual names, has been revived in Kalasatama, and the block of this project is called Atrain (a trident). 

This block is located north of the new Kalasatama centre, along a green street with retail and restaurant spaces. The colourful balconies of the lower apartments highlight the street-level arcades in front of the commercial premises.

The masterplan forbade the placement of escape routes in the courtyard, which had an effect on the orientation of the floorplans. All apartments and balconies are along the streets. The demanding shapes set by the formula have enabled exceptionally varied views and space solutions.

Residents' common spaces like saunas and clubrooms are mainly on the top floors. The point blocks are connected together on the lower floors and there are some saunas, clubrooms and laundries also in these lower-level joints. The ventilation plant rooms are hidden under the pitched roofs tilted towards the courtyard.

The facades on the street side are light-toned brickwork in accordance with the masterplan. Also, according to the plan, the courtyard facades had to be built uniformly and be constructed of floor high panels. This requirement has been met by using solid-coloured concrete sandwich panels, the surface of which has two different textures, forming vertical, level-high stripes. The element appearance was faded by placing the horizontal joins of the panels on the upper edge of the window frames and vertical joins on the edges of the textured fields. The varnish colours, provide necessary surface protection and vary for each building, giving each its own character. The back of the balconies are clad in timber.

During the budgeting rounds in Contract Administration the size of the underground carpark was reduced, e.g. by swapping reserved spots for shared-use carparks. This solution resulted in the block having space for earth-bound courtyard planting with large trees that is exceptional for the new urban Kalasatama area.

Team:

Architects: Kirsti Sivén & Asko Takala Architects

Landscaping: Tuula Nurmi / Sivén & Takala Architects

Structure engineering: Jonecon

HVAC: Wise Group

Electrical: Elbox

Client: Helsinki City Housing

Contractor: YIT

Photographer: Martin Sommerschield / Kuvio

Materials Used:

Facade cladding, street sides:  Brick, Edelweiss Lusto, white, Tiileri
Facade cladding, street sides:  Brick, Laava Lusto, black, Tiileri
Facade cladding, courtyard sides:   Concrete + lasur, various tones, Keim
Facade cladding, street sides:  Fibre cement, Cembrit Swisspearl