The West Terminal 2 passenger ferry terminal is situated in Helsinki's West Harbour on a narrow plot of reclaimed land in the new Jätkäsaari neighbourhood, a former freight port area.The new terminal was built to meet the needs of the growing ferry traffic on the busy Helsinki-Tallinn route.

The terminal building is located between two quays to make the most of the relatively small plot. As most of the dock area is required for the vehicles queuing to board the ferries, the ground level was designed to be as compact as possible. The departure lounge is raised 10 metres off the ground, allowing traffic to flow under the building. The central, raised location of the lounge also minimises passengers’ walking distances along the corridors and bridges to the ships on either side of the terminal.The fast embarkation and disembarkation of passengers reduces the turnaround times of ferries in port to just one hour.

The ground floor is mainly a pass-through area with separate exit and entrance lobbies. Passengers enter the terminal through a check-in area with 15-metre-high glass walls and then ascend to the departure lounge on escalators and lifts.

The departure lounge is a spacious, hangar-like space with a restaurant, café and seating. High glass walls open to a sweeping view of the sea and incoming and departing ships. The view can be enjoyed from the oak counter running along the full width of the window wall or, in summer, from the seaside terrace. The expansive wooden ceiling, made from heat-treated pine slats, rises up to a height of nine metres. Lighting, ventilation and sprinklers are integrated discretely into the ceiling.

From the middle, the ceiling slopes down towards the sides, directing passengers to the boarding bridges. Glass surfaces and lighting solutions play an important role in keeping the passenger route clear and safe.

The departing and arriving passenger flows are separated, with arriving passengers being guided directly onto escalators and out of the terminal through customs on the ground floor.

In addition to the requirement for efficiency, the design aimed at a high standard of elegance, quality and comfort. Materials were chosen for wear resistance so as to retain their attractiveness throughout the lifespan of the building, at least for the next hundred years.

The facades and roof are of aluminium, creating a unified and sculptural look for the building. The material is also practically maintenance-free in the demanding climatic conditions. The ventilation rooms are concealed under the curved roof so that supply air intake is at roof level on the north side and exhaust air is ”exhaled” through gill-like ventilation grills visible on the wings of the building.

From outside, the sleek, flowing lines of the building resemble a sea creature washed ashore, with glass, concrete and sea aluminium facades that gleam in the sun. Near the main entrance, the pine boards of the facade commemorate the time when ships were still made of wood.

Helsinki’s new ferry terminal was designed to meet the needs of the growing Helsinki-Tallinn sea traffic.

This major project aimed to combine functionality with high-level architecture and design to create a modern, radiant hub for millions of international passengers.

The departure lounge is an open, hangar-like space with glass walls 15 meters high that offer brilliant views of the seas and docking ferries. With 6-7 million passengers traveling through each year, efficiency and durability were significant concerns, and the reflection of the sun off the sea through the windows created a need for glare-reducing design and material.

Thin slats of Thermory Benchmark Pine were chosen to complete the curved, sloping ceiling, up to nine meters high in some areas. The slopes of the ceiling serve to help direct passenger traffic, and the high Solar Reflectivity Index help to significantly reduce glare within the large open area, and perfectly highlights the award-winning lighting to make this a modern, stunning international hub.

This is not a project that can afford to be redone every ten years. The port is expected to last a century, and the materials used need to age with it. Thermory products have a wonderfully unique color evolution, ensuring they get more beautiful and elegant with time.

The first known example of thermally modified wood comes from the Vikings, who needed boats that could withstand corrosion from saltwater. Inspired homage, then, to use a radiant expanse of thermally-modified wood at a Finnish ferry port.

AWARDS: nominated for the World Architecture Festival (WAF) 2017 Awards in the Transport – Completed Buildings category. It was also the recipient of the Finnish Lighting Award in 2017.

Design
PES Architects

Photography
Kari Palsila

Product Information
Benchmark by Thermory 
Thermo-pine ceiling

The new terminal at the West Port of Helsinki in Finland, designed to streamline and speed up transfers of the growing number of passengers, is now operational.This building, placed facing the sea and fully glazed to give pride of place to natural light, had, in use, shown to suffer from strong direct and indirect glare. A real challenge, since it was necessary to find a solution that would simultaneously have minimal impact on the architecture and total efficiency. Successful bet for Mermet: thanks to its unequalled performance, the choice of its fabric SV 3% Koolblack™ fabric, the first indoor dark screen combining visual and thermal comfort, has once again naturally imposed itself in a country where, in summer, the sun never sets !

An essential fight against glare

For Finnish architecture firm Pesark, working on flow efficiency to improve the ever larger ferry rotationswas just as important as providing a bright but comfortable public space. Transparency was therefore essential to satisfy the 5.4 million passengers departing for Sweden, Estonia or cruises on the Baltic Sea. The sun however, low in the east in the morning and in the west in the afternoon, shone through the building and made it difficult to work at check-in desks.

"Our main goal was to ensure a comfortable work environment for employees in the check-in area. But this need to reduce direct and indirect glare should not affect the architecture. The answer is based on:

• a sunscreen solution that keeps the building's feeling of openness and maintains excellent transparency towards the outside

• a fabric that offers excellent glare control all year long, which is a challenge in Finland where the sun's trajectory is very different between summer and winter

• a discreet device and a system easy to control by the end user

• maintaining optimum thermal comfort for users Thanks to its dark Charcoal colour (reference 3535), the SV 3% Koolblack™ fabric, a transparent heat shield, is invisible on the glazed facades seen from the outside and meets all our expectations.92 sheets (2,500 mm x 3,000 mm), i.e. 800 m² were implemented as roll-up blinds with Somfy IO motors." Maria Sillman -Studio Dekosol OY.

Koolblack, a technology patented by Mermet

By improving the solar reflection of dark fabric, Koolblack™ technolog guarantees:-Optimum indoor heat control with improved solar reflection (Rs = 29%).Thanks to the Koolblack™ technology, solar reflection of dark colours is increased to levels comparable to those of light colours. A breakthrough compared to conventionaldark screens which, for an equivalent fabric, achieve 5% solar reflection

-Optimum thermal comfort:69% of solar energy rejected (gtot -0.31 / glazing g = 0.32 and U = 1.1)

-Excellent glare control:95% of light rays filtered (VT = 5%)

-An excellent view towards the outside and perfect integration, seen from outside, with the building facades Finally, thanks to its large width of 310 cm, the SV 3% Koolblack™ fabric can be fitted onto large bays without connection.

Bearing the Greenguard®label (indoor air quality assurance VOC), fire rated FR (USA) -NFPA 701 and BS (GB) -5867, bacteria-resistant (more than 99% of bacteria killed -ASTM 2180), the new SV 3% Koolblack™ fabric also offers excellent durability thanks to a 10,000-cycle mechanical endurance test (class 3 NF EN 13120) and guarantees perfect flatness even in large dimension.

Always involved in innovation, Mermet is again showing the effectiveness of its solutions. Thanks to the Koolblack™ technology, dark fabrics now keep their optical and thermal performance!