Viikki Science Park: Helsinki's green valley

Scandinavian Review, Winter 1996 by Louhenjoki, Pirkko-Liisa

From Medieval Farm to Science Park

Ecology and the green life style, starting from consumer attitudes, seem nowadays to be an answer as well to many urban problems. The fact the economic growth has its limits and that our present way of life is not sustainable has become clear. What is a sustainable future? Ecology is not only what kind of products to buy, but how to take into account ecological aspects in urban life. Can ecology, science and architecture be combined?

Ecology is already there, in the form of 630 acres of nature reserve, mostly wetlands, internationally protected as a waterfowl habitat-and according to many experts the best bird watching place in Europe-in Viikki, five miles northeast of the central urban area of Helsinki, the capital city of Finland, on a shallow inland bay of the Baltic Sea and part of a 2000 acre recreational area.

Architecture came at the orders of Gustavus Vasa, King of Sweden and also Finland, when the town of Helsinki was established at nearby Vanhankaupunginlahti (Old Town Bay) 447 years ago by compelling unwilling settlers-a mere 500 people-to move. This was an attempt to control and regulate the trade taking place between the local Finnish farmers and the merchants of the flourishing town of Tallinn across the Baltic Sea. The settlement failed, and the town was relocated 90 years later to its present location closer to the sea. The old town fell into decline, for the benefit of the nature reserve. The estate in Viikki, established as a crown farm in 1555, continued functioning, and that is where the University of Helsinki located its experimental farm in the 1930s, and then after the war built the spaces for the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry together with student housing. For a long time it stayed as a rural corner at the geographical center of the growing city.

Science in a bigger scale came when the Helsinki Science Park was established in Viikki a few years ago as a cooperative venture by the University, the Finnish Government, the City of Helsinki, and Finnish business organizations. The goal is to develop Viikki into a high-standard, internationally-recognized concentration of bio-scientific and biotechnological research, teaching, and product development facilities. Currently 1000 scientists and technical persons, and 2500 students work in the Science Park, but after the construction work is completed, it will provide 6000 new jobs and will be one of the largest centers for biological sciences in Europe.

Science in the Park

The Science Park with its public and commercial services will be the heart of Viikki Green Valley. What makes the Science Park interesting is its strong emphasis on cooperation between private industry and university: university research and teaching programs, large corporation research and development departments, and small firms specialized in the design and manufacture of high technology. The unique quality of the unspoiled site is both an attraction and a challenge.

The Science Park became a reality when the University of Helsinki started to concentrate its biological science and teaching facilities at Viikki to join the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry already located there. The first two Biocenter buildings were completed in 1995 and are now occupied by the Institute of Biotechnology. Departments of Pharmacy, Applied Chemistry and Microbiology, and General Microbiology, Plant Physiology, Biochemistry and Genetics from the Department of Bioscience. They also contain spaces for use by private companies.

The main building of the Biocenter was designed by Kaarina Lostrom, an architect known for her elegant industrial and office buildings. Her office had started to work on a preliminary land use plan already in 1988, the idea of which was to preserve the special qualities of the landscape. The main ideas behind the land use plan were to preserve the unique landscape and to leave the Green Valley unbuilt. The two first buildings-the other designed by Juhani Katainen-are built along the old village road to flank the old manor house and the existing Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry buildings, leaving a view open to the fields of the old farmland, which continue down to the nature protection area at the bay. The buildings descend in height towards the bay. The curved main front of the buildings contain common spaces such as teaching laboratories and administrative offices. The "fingers" spreading behind reflect the nearby university buildings from the 1960s and house the researchers' studies and laboratories. The library serving both buildings and a restaurant adjacent to the main entrance are both spatially separate and unique. The symbol of the main entrance is a two-story glass and steel green wall, in the future to be shaded by vines. The cool crispness of the architecture, elegant detailing, the dark silver and green color of the steel and abundant use of glass reflect the detailed, precise and demanding work of the scientists. Inside, the warm colored wood softens the work environment.