PSOAS Uno
A student tower in Välkkylä student village
The Foundation for Student Housing in Northern Finland organized an invitational competition for a student tower. The tower needed to be high in architectural quality, a landmark tower building that was suitable for its location.
The student apartments needed to be comfortable and the building to support the students' sense of community. Attention also had to be paid to sustainability, adaptability and energy efficiency.
alt Architects won the competition with their proposal "Fantom".
Project information
Communality at the heart of design
The key idea of the plan came with the spatial design of the student housing unit. In the design, student apartments wrap around floor-specific common areas. This arrangement supports a sense of community but does not force it. Instead of a traditional one-level apartment, we designed a sleeping loft for all apartments. Consequently, the jury considered that the efficient but practical and stylish architecture of the apartments was one of the key merits of the work.
The loft design resulted in higher floors, adding to the height to the building mass and thus also an upright landmark-like appearance. The local detailed plan restricted the number of floors for the building, but not the height.
The tower plan utilizes the characteristics of the site in such a way that on the lower floors, the common areas and the large balconies connected to them face south, into a spacious park-like environment, but on the upper floors, they turn west and towards the seascape. The sculptural design of the building stems from practicality.
Fantom immediately rises to the top of the competition thanks to the proposal's handsome architecture. The proposal is a controlled, intact whole, the quality of which extends all the way to presentation.
– Competition jury
