Project: Competition entry (JM100)

Location: Vuores, Tampere, Finland

Size: 0.7 hectares

Competition drawings submitted on 3no. A1 boards

(click individually to view larger in pdf )

Extract taken from

submission document

The competition site bordering Vuoreksen Puistokatu has an edge with the open parkland on two sides and a close proximity of two lakes. The master plan with neighbouring residential blocks, orientation of the site, potential opening views and vistas and sloping site create given conditions to the competition site. ‘Environmentally friendly urban small scale housing for ordinary Finns in natural environment’ is the next step towards a durable development deriving from the well known dream of most Finns - small house on a lake with a sauna.

Urban design and brief constraints

The master plan seems to come from ‘traditional’ urban design principles - which in this case unfortunately does not maximise the opportunities for passive solar design - one of our design drivers - and also fixes the permissible built areas and hence the density of the buildings on the site. This, and the brief requirement for ‘dwellings are cosy and suitable for ordinary people’ has led us to stick to fairly conventional dwelling types - the terraced (row) house; the single storey ‘courtyard’ house (bungalow/villa); and the small scale apartment block - and thus to make some compromises in our ideal of a zero energy development.

During the design process we experimented with a number of dwelling forms and combinations (refer to programmatic approach to design on page 7 of the submission document) - in the end we concluded that a solution that better met our environmental design aims would work at best poorly with the master- plan, and at worst contravene it in several ways.

Although a popular model in Finland, the single storey ‘omakotitalo’ (detached single family house) inherently has a high surface to volume area ratio which leads to higher heat loss and thus energy use; in order to have south facing ‘wintergarden’ balconies on all the apartment units on the western edge of the site we could not produce a single block. We also opted for internal top-lit ‘wintergarden’ atrium spaces in the deeper plan row houses rather than south facing external ones to give the split level houses a space useable all-year round to supplement the roof terrace, as there is no space to have individual gardens - although we acknowledge that this reduces the contribution to the passive solar design of these houses.

We also decided to make the main entrances for all the dwellings from inside the plot (rather from the plot perimeter or street frontages) to try to foster a sense of community - of sharing a sequence of courtyard type spaces within a defined boundary. Whilst in the UK, with it’s tradition of street fronting terrace and semi-detached houses, this would be seen as ‘back-to-front’ however in Finland this seems to be a more common and accepted model. Cutting through the plot are two wedges of space intended to create pedestrian priority to movement and to link from the higher Vuoreksen Puistonkatu avenue through to the park, and also on the centreline axis of the row houses and courtyard houses to symbolically link the street front flag pole with the park side wind turbine (shared by the four courtyard houses and for site lighting and electric car charging points). This axis creates a vista opening towards the old farm house on the hill.

Thirty-three entries were made for this site, one of two Finnish locations from 60+ sites proposed in 19 European countries for the Europan 10 design competition for ‘young’ architects. It forms a part of the new Vuores urban extension of Tampere, and will be part of the 2012 Asuntomessut  (Housing Fair).

Our proposal was for two adjacent rows of split-level terrace houses with internal courtyards, three small apartment blocks with south facing balcony winter gardens and four linear single-storey courtyard houses. All are clad in a unifying ‘tar’ black vertical timber boarding with concrete and gabion wall elements at ground level and metal seamed roofs. Coloured metal panels (shown yellow-green, but envisaged to be a range of shades) add highlights.  All units have wind driven whole house ventilation (with heat recovery) with heat from the local CHP district heating plant and the potential for individual and/or shared wind turbines.

See the official competition web sites for more information

http://www.europan.fi

http://www.europan-europe.com

Site Location Plan

© Europan / Tampere

Site Brief Summary

© Europan / Tampere