Cloud City
Greater Helsinki.
Image, Identity. The intention is to create a compact centre, clearly legible in terms of layout and space, consisting of commercial, service and cultural functions. The district and the centre are divided between two sides by the urban motorway.
In the core of this centre a spatial structural scaffold is planned, spanning the separating expanse of the road-traffic environment and formed as a hanging garden. It connects the adjacent thoroughfare with the road environment and into the building. Besides urban squares, gardens and promenades, the proposal envisions above all cultural and social functions, complemented by small-scale service and commercial units. The structure itself avoids a tunnel effect, allowing light and air to the motorway.
Carbon Neutral. A vital ingredient in the new centre is the intensive greening of the road and traffic environments. The urban motorway is transformed to become a parkway, characteristically shaping the image of the new centre to the same extent as the new compactness and the hanging gardens. The parkway idea extends, via the focal spatial framework, to also encompass the core of the centre. The framework is partially equipped with a solar-panel roof, providing shade in summer.
Aerial View
Street-level views
