On the seashore - design of Nokia's headquarters in Espoo, Finland

Architectural Review, The, April, 1998 by Peter Davey

A company headquarters which uses simple energy saving devices to enhance a strong plan and section that generate dramatic and welcoming spaces.

Nokia must be Finland's most well-known company. Yet only a decade ago, it was still one of those big rather faceless conglomerates of the kind which emerged from farmland and forest during the very late Nordic industrial revolution to produce everything from timber and paper, tyres and contraceptives, to aluminium and cables. Nokia's decision to focus on data communications greatly increased its turnover and staff numbers, and in 1994, a competition was held to find a design for a new headquarters building. It was won by Helin & Siitonen, who had already been chosen in a 1983 competition - a design abandoned as slump and company reorganization had their effect.

The site remained the same. The tip of a wooded peninsula in the raggle of land and sea to the west of Helsinki at Espoo has been cut off by one of the motorways which conveniently but ruthlessly slice across forested islands and open water. One reason for choosing the place was its proximity to the famous planned settlement of Tapiola. More importantly, it is close to the Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Otaniemi University of Technology (which incidentally includes the fabled Helsinki architectural school).

The parti of the new building is very strong and simple. Two rectangular atria are arranged on an axis which runs roughly northwest to south-east, parallel to the shore. Triangles of office space are set on both sides of the atria, so creating two squares in plan which are linked by the entrance and (on upper floors) glazed bridges. To the west, the main building is partly shielded from the motorway by the elegant grey arc of the mesh-sided three-storey car park; between the two is a calm entrance court. To the east, Nokia House looks over sea and islands towards the city; in front, there is a cycleway and a promenade, required by the Espoo local authority plan to allow all citizens to enjoy the sweep of Keilalahti Bay's granite shoreline. The building's height has been carefully arranged to coincide with the tops of the surrounding trees, so that from the sea the main bulk does not protrude too severely against the skyline of the forest beyond the motorway. But there is no attempt at naturalness. The two glass-clad prisms with their transparent link form a very precise artefact shining smooth against the amorphous dark green background.

Closer inspection reveals a building with a life of its own behind the crisply detailed but impassive tightly stretched grey outer skin. Surprisingly, this is the first double facade to be made in the Nordic countries and, even more curiously, the decision to surround the building with a continuous thermal buffer was taken quite late in the design process. Pekka Helin claims that the payback time for the additional investment in terms of energy and fuel saved will be only seven years. The system is one of the simplest imaginable. The glass skin is bracketed off the heavily insulated precast concrete inner wall. In that, windows are openable and do much to reduce the need for artificial cooling. In summer (or at any other hot time), cavities become thermal chimneys by simply automatically opening louvres on the inside of the parapet that surrounds the roof. In winter, the louvres are shut and cavity air becomes an insulating layer. The gridded metal walkways in the cavity provide a measure of shade in summer, and long glancing winter light can be modulated by blinds, which, with the opening windows, show something of the inner life of the building through the grey glass skin. Other devices for controlling internal temperature and reducing use of artificially generated energy include a sophisticated heat exchanger in the air-conditioning system which utilizes much of the waste energy for either heating or cooling, and chilled ceilings which balance temperature in individual offices.

None of all this is very apparent when you go into the building. The glazed link between the two squares transports you from the noise and pollution of the motorway, which (though muted) are still appreciable in the entrance court, to the calm of long views of sea and trees with, vaguely glimpsed on the horizon, the towers of the city. When you go in, the glass entrance hall with its sloping east wall soars upwards with the thin trussed laminated wood bridges delineating space into layers. Colours are predominantly cool and neutral with a black slate floor, grey powder-coated steel glazing structures and white columns. To left and right, the big spaces of the atria beckon with a much warmer palette of colours. This level is the one on which visitors are allowed (as usual in such companies, work in the offices is perceived to be so secret that few outsiders are allowed upstairs). Small ground floor meeting rooms overlook the bay and the right-hand atrium houses two auditoria, with the semi-circular bulk of the larger one dominating the lower part of the space.