The Emergency Services College is a national institution of vocational education and training centre for rescue services. The existing buildings on the site include a school and dormitory building implemented in 1992 on the basis of an architectural competition and an education facility completed three years later. The fourth phase included a new teaching facility and a student hotel.
The concrete-built student hotel fronting the street forms an enclosure in place of the previously open street space. It also forms a pair to the existing hose tower forming a termination point for Pyörönkaari boulevard. The basement contains parking spaces for cars and emergency vehicles. In the interior the red lounge areas cutting into the cellular dormitory structure subdivide the hundred-metre central corridor into a modern village high street.
The new teaching facility is located as a satellite in the parkland section of the site. Its spatial organisation is simple: four light wells in the building’s central zone pierce through the floors. The architecture of the Emergency Services College is intended to follow its function. The college trains the students to cope with chaotic situations. A clear, compact floor plan and a logical exterior design form a backdrop for education that is intended to develop self-assurance, diligence, and endurance – the basis of professional expertise.
