Tikkurila Church Recognized with Honorary Mention in Kehäkukka Award

Tikkurila Church is recognized with a Honorary Mention in the Kehäkukka Architecture Award 2024 granted by the City of Vantaa.

Kehäkukka, “the Marigold”, is an architecture award granted in recognition of a construction project, event, person or community that has developed or brought Vantaa architecture to the fore. The award is part of the Architecture Policy of the City of Vantaa. It was established in 2007 to highlight Vantaa’s commitment to architecture that is functional, beautiful and sustainable. The award gives recognition to those who have promoted these goals.

This year the Kehäkukka Award is given out for the first time after a break of a few years. The award ceremony takes places in conjunction with the Vantaa architecture seminar on November 8, 2024. The 2024 Kehäkukka Award is part of the activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vantaa as a city.

  • To read more about the Kehäkukka Architecture Award (in Finnish), see HERE.
The Church Hall of the Tikkurila Church seen from the balcony, showing the organ across the balcony and the altar and the seating on the main floor

Tikkurila Church – A Place for the Community

The Tikkurila church is a multifunctional building designed to serve the needs of the area’s residents in many ways. Clad in multi-colored brick, the building engages in dialogue with the surrounding urban space. With its strong sculptural character it gives a unique, recognizable identity for the area. The triangular shape of the church is inspired by the site in the corner of a residential block on the town square, but it can also be seen as symbolic.

The building is designed to serve people in everyday life as well as during special celebrations. It provides people with a place to meet and offers parish employees functional, versatile and modern working spaces. The goal is to create an entity that functions as the focal point of the developing center of Tikkurila and forms the heart of the area. Surrounded by pedestrian streets and located next to good public transport connections, the. church is easily accessible both on foot and by bicycle.

The Tikkurila Church forms a focal point of the lively town square in downtown Tikkurila

Working in Harmony with the Cityscape

Centrally located in downtown Tikkurila, it is easily accessible. It is thoughtfully designed to be welcoming and inviting. Opposite the town hall, the building takes on its role as a church in the middle of the village, as part of the community, but boldly with an expression of its own.

With its facades of multicolored brick, the composition of the block with variable heights works harmoniously with the rest of the look and architecture of the area. The church with the sacral spaces is placed in the corner of the block giving it a strong presence on the square. The block slopes down towards Asematie and the market near the Town Hall. The shape is carefully designed so that the pitched roof of the church casts as little shadow on the surroundings as possible.

The central lobby of the Tikkurila Church showing the open stairs to the second floor on the left, the info desc in the middle and the cafe on the right

A Framework for Many Kinds of Activities

The church provides a framework for many kinds of activities. The church hall is the heart of the building. It is a powerful space marked with a delicate play of natural light and a strong sense of materials. It is designed to adapt flexibly to many uses and to accommodate the needs of different kinds of events from sacral ceremonial occasions to musical concerts and performances.

In addition to the church hall, the building contains a cafe, a kids corner for families, meeting rooms for the community, offices and work spaces, an open lobby that can serve as a stage for events, and a church garden in the courtyard. The interior of the church is characterized by a sense of openness and warmth. The main entrance and the central lobby with cafes are placed openly and invitingly along the town square, and the threshold to enter all the spaces is really low.

The principle of flexibility of spaces to make it possible to convert them from one use to another has been a guiding idea in the arrangement of spaces in the building. The use of space is efficient and well thought out, and orientation between spaces in the building is clear and well organized. The main hall is connected to a series of meeting rooms that can be divided and opened as desired by a movable wall.

Tikkurila Church and Bethania Housing – One Unity to Serve the Community

Entrance from the street to the open yard space shared by the Tikkurila Church and the Bethania apartments and the community at large

The Tikkurila church and Bethania’s residential quarter form a seamless whole in the cityscape. The apartment building and the church are designed to form one unity in which the church and the housing complement each other. Together, they offer a broad range of services to the community in the area.

The Tikkurila Church was commissioned by the Vantaa Parishes and realized as an alliance project together with the Vantaa Parishes, OOPEAA and Lujatalo.

Tikkurila Church and adjoining residential quarter have been awarded several prizes both in Finland and internationally. It is e.g. selected for the top 40 list of the prestigious European contemporary architecture Mies van der Rohe Award in 2022 and the recipient of the Barbara Cappochin International Architecture Prize 2023–2024 International Best Works, The PLAN Award 2022 and the Sustainable Kivitalo 2021 awards.

  • For a more information and images on Tikkurila Church, see HERE.