Kastelli Community Centre

Kastelli Community Centre is a place for learning, education, sports and culture.

The many users of the Centre include the comprehensive school, upper secondary school for youth and adults and a library. There are also facilities for the adult education and a youth centre. Variety of sport halls of different sizes serve athletic clubs after school days. The largest sports hall with 800 seats is used also for floor ball, basketball and volleyball games in the national league level.

Due to the complexity of the project the City of Oulu arranged a two-phase design competition in 2009 - 2010: the entry called “hyrrä” (“gyroscope”) was declared the winner of the anonymous competition. The winning entry succeeded in segmenting the impressive public building mass into small-scale parts that together make up a sympathetic village and increase the sense of community. The scale of the building parts was adjusted to suit the children. Playful use of colours and shapes was a central principle during all design stages.

The functions of the centre are divided in smaller units according to age groups, which serve for better orientation. The routes both inside and outside of the building as well as the schoolyards are also specially designed for each grade.

The design of various learning environments was one of the key points in the process as several schools are included in the programme. The users were actively involved in the first stage spatial design and it was continued together with the specialists in pedagogy. The design resulted in a flexible, convertible, stimulating and safe learning environment that will also adjust for future new teaching and learning methods.

The central lobby of the building complex binds together all the functions and gives the building its own visual character with its sculptural design, materials and colours. The canteen and the library are located in this spatially rich lobby environment. The lobby is also used as foyer during big public and sports events. The free form lounge spaces in the lobby connect the comprehensive school and the upper secondary schools in the first floor level. The concrete staircases and the mushroom formed concrete columns are cast-on-site.

Special attention was paid also to schoolyard design. Outdoor furniture, planting groups, green mounds and comprehensive colour design and asphalt paintings enliven the stimulating yards. The large yard around the building is divided by landscaping into smaller niches suitable for various age groups; this design is aligned with the architecture of the building. The noise barrier of the near-by busy street and its relation with immediate surroundings has been also designed by means of landscape architecture.

Awards: • RIL Prize 2014 (The Finnish Association of Civil Engineers) • MIPIM Award, shortlisted for the “Best Innovative Green Building”

The interior space of the Kastelli Community Centre is highly adaptable, with structural solutions that are designed to be sustainable and have a long useful life. Kastelli is a lifecycle project developed on the PPP model. The Lemminkaïnen Group takes responsibility for maintenance and basic renovation investments over a service period of 25 years. Kastelli was the first design in the Nordic countries to receive the international LEED for Schools Gold rating, and also won the 2014 Floor of the Year award in Finland.

Every day, more than two thousand children, youths and adults play, study, move about and work at the Kastelli community centre in Oulu. The high quality lighting is an important part of this effective and flexible learning environment, and it is also pleasing to the eye and creates a sense of safety.

The Kastelli building houses a nursery, a primary and a secondary school, an upper secondary school, an adult learning centre, a library and a youth centre. In the evenings and weekends, the versatile sports halls are used by exercise groups of many kinds. The citizens of all ages have embraced the new Kastelli building.

Kastelli is a modern and extensive building, which was constructed following the life span model, and the rooms of the building are designed to be multi purpose and to serve the citizens for many years to come. Lemminkäinen is committed to manage the maintenance and the upkeep of the building for the next 25 years. The lighting is an essential part of the energy efficiency plan during the hours the building is being used. "When planning and constructing the building, the durability, functionality and energy efficiency of the equipment and systems were the central concern. Strict quality requirements were set for lighting and the effective lighting management allows the building to be run energy efficiently.

The building was the first school in the Nordic Countries to be awarded the Gold level LEED for Schools certification. The community centre offers a long-lasting, safe and versatile space.

"When moving around the building, the large areas are usually experienced as a series of various rooms and spaces, all of which have their own characters. The building has been divided into four in accordance with the purpose of the space, and the character of the space has been highlighted using light, colours and materials. The use of strong colours creates a pleasant, cheery and playful atmosphere but also requires good lighting", says architect Petri Saarelainen from the agency Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects. The class rooms were fitted with the energy efficient C10 and C20 series lights by Glamox, as their versatile optics options enabled the space to be lit in the desired way. The lamps were suspended from the ceiling making the higher parts of the space appear better lit. The T5 florescent lights are controlled using the DALI control panels, as well as the daylight and motion detectors. The preprogrammed control systems make it easy to alter the lighting in the teaching rooms. The people using the building took part in the lighting planning process and have been happy with the results.

The large sports hall includes 800 audience seats and is constantly being used for various ball games. Many top level games are also played in the hall, as it is the home court for Oulun Luistinseura's (OLS) men's floorball team. The lighting is carried out with Glamox C51 sports lights, which also fulfil the strict requirements for telecasting, meaning good and even general lighting and an excellent colour rendering index. The C51 lights with TF5 florescent lights can withstand hits from balls and will not blind or distract the players. The DALI operating systems allow the lighting to be managed effectively.

In the main hall, the lower section is lit with Travel R lights and the upper parts with D20 lights which have been embedded on the structure, and this allows the large space to be lit in a pleasant and efficient way. The hallways are lit with energy efficient and stylish C20 module lights. The lights in the lobby and the halls were positioned in an irregular pattern in order to emphasize the free form of the space. The lighting colour warmth in the entire building is 4 000 kelvins.

The Kastelli building was built following a life span plan and when selecting the luminaires, the reliability of the lighting manufacturer and the energy efficiency were important factors.

"We want the lights and sources of light to be durable and long-lasting. From a maintenance perspective, it is important that most of the light fixtures were by the same supplier and the number of lighting types has been minimised", the project manager Tapio Mehtälä from Sweco Talotekniikka Oy says.