Three OOPEAA projects nominated for the ArchDaily Building of the Year Award

Three OOPEAA projects have been nominated for the ArchDaily 2022 Building of the Year Awards: Tikkurila Church and Housing, Villa Koivikko, and Puuhi Community Space. Voting to decide the best architecture of the Year is now open and will continue until February 8, 2022.

The ArchDaily Building of the Year Award showcases projects chosen by ArchDaily readers from buildings that were published during 2021. Peer-based and crowdsourced, the award represents the values of ArchDaily’s mission, bringing inspiration, knowledge, and tools to architects around the world.

Tikkurila Church and Housing is a nominee for the ArchDaily 2022 Building of the Year Awards in the category of Religious Architecture.

• Vote for the Tikkurila Church and Housing HERE.

The Tikkurila Church and Housing is a multifunctional complex combining a church, a cafe, offices, housing, retail, services, and public space. Together, the church and the housing form one unity with a diversity of functions to serve the residents of Tikkurila, one of the fastest-growing and ethnically most diverse areas in the metropolitan region of Helsinki.

Located along the main town square opposite the town hall, the church and the adjoining housing are part of the transformation and densification of downtown Tikkurila. The church is placed in the corner and integrated into a city block. With its lively multicolored brick façade and strong sculptural shape, it forms an identifying landmark for the neighborhood.

Villa Koivikko is a nominee for the ArchDaily 2022 Building of the Year Awards in the category of Houses.

• Vote for the Villa Koivikko HERE.

The project for restoring, renovating and adding new buildings to the Villa Koivikko addresses the challenge of taking care of the heritage of modern architecture. It responds to the quest for solutions that allow modernist buildings to meet the needs of their contemporary users. Villa Koivikko shows how new buildings can be added to a valuable landmark to create something entirely new while successfully complementing the existing architecture.

The modernist villa and the caretaker’s house by Aarne Ervi from 1958 were restored and three new wooden buildings were added to complement them. The built-in garage was replaced by a free-standing car-shed, a new sauna was built in place of the old one, and a writer’s studio was built on top of the old stone cellar.

Puuhi Community Space is a nominee for the ArchDaily 2022 Building of the Year Awards in the category of Public & Landscape Architecture.

• Vote for the Puuhi Community Space HERE.

Initiated by the villagers, Puuhi is a space for a shared activity for the people of Soini. The goal was to create a socially and ecologically sustainable wooden building of high architectural quality using local materials and drawing from local skills and resources. Anssi Lassila of OOPEAA, a native of Soini himself, was asked to design it, and the final building is a result of a seamless collaboration between him and a skilled local builder, Aki Alatalo.

The entire project was realized with a very small budget, and a lot of the materials were recycled from local sources. Apart from the drawings required for the building permit, only hand-drawn sketches were made. During the two-year building process, the plans were flexibly modified in response to the arising needs and to the availability of materials.