Hiekkahovi Conference and Holiday Facility

Hiekkahovi is a conference and holiday facility in Vuokatti, Sotkamo, with plentiful opportunities for sports and outdoor activities. It has been built in the landscape of the old tar route, in north-eastern Finland, facing the Vuokatti hills. The holiday centre consists of eight accommodation units plus communal spaces. You approach the building along a wooded slope. On entering, you see first a folded, tar-painted wall that provides protection from the wind and snow. Access to the covered walkway that joins the buildings is via low bridges that lead through the gateways. You can smell the tar. On the inside of the main gate the buildings form a fan overlooking the lake. The parts making up the common spaces and sauna facilities gradually step down towards the shoreline. On the southern side is a deck that continues as a jetty to the shore. The living quarters are subdivided into two levels in two separate blocks. Each bedroom unit has a small sauna and a shower room and there is a small terrace on the lake-facing side. Between the sandy beach and the buildings there are trees, through which you can see glimpses of the wider landscape.

The building comprises several spaces bordering between the interior and exterior; some light and some quite dark. The entrance to an old Finnish smoke sauna could be closed with timbers leaning over the openings. The old houses of Viena Karelia with their fairly freely joined, ŽmodernŽ, monopitchedroofed volumes, overreaching canopies and bridges as well as Finnish drying barns acted as sources of inspiration in the design. In the winter, high snowdrifts form in front of the buildings and snow is rendering the walls. The frame structure of the communal spaces and sauna section is built in gluelam timber. The accommondation blocks utilise a platform construction technique. The timberframed walls and the roofs have been insulated with recycled wood fibre wool. Several different weatherboarding and traditional paint techniques were used in facades. The slanted wall has been constructed like a traditional plank roof, from thick grooved timber planks. This facade has been finished with three coats of wood tar. The use of pressure impregnated timber has been avoided.

The main sauna is made in laminated pine logs. Parts of the gates and terraces are latticeworks. The interior spaces consist of plywood and different kinds of panelled surfaces. The plank floors and walls were treated with oil. The furnishings are mostly of InnoŽs C.D.series. Dark curved steel front plate of the open fire-place creates the impression of the boiler of a steam locomotive. The developer is the sports foundation for railway folks. The construction works were completed in the winter 2003. Then in the spring the terrain was repaired and planted with turfs of local berries and small trees.