Katajanokan Laituri

Located in Helsinki’s South Harbour, the site lies within a nationally significant maritime landscape. The building connects to the neoclassical silhouette, engages with the layered urban fabric, and reflects the area’s industrial heritage. It maintains a quiet presence, while its materiality reveals surprises up close. A flexible wooden frame accommodates multiple uses with a public rooftop garden, street-level services and a welcoming light-filled public lobby. Designed as the new head office for the forestry company Stora Enso, half of the building houses a hotel.

The project was guided by the objective of minimizing climate impacts and making the best use of renewable resources. Large-scale wooden buildings remain rare in cities. We sought to find a contextual architectural language that celebrates the industrial beauty and tactile presence of exposed timber—a new kind of locality and material expression. The site posed technical challenges: difficult foundations, harsh maritime climate, and ship noise. The building also functions as a flood barrier. Its structural system, use of natural light, and adaptable spaces support long-term flexibility and versatile use. A double-layered façade addresses both technical requirements and heritage sensitivity. Its outer shell—glass, granite, and recycled aluminum—engages with the stone-built surroundings, protects the wooden frame, improves acoustics, and changes character with time and seasons. As a former dockland, integrating natural elements to enhance biodiversity and climate resilience was essential.

The building´s above-ground structures utilise prefabricated massive wood products from locally sourced spruce. It required high precision and ensured a short construction period with minimal on-site work. The post-beam frame and façade structures are made from LVL, while load bearing inner walls, floors, roofs, and lift and staircase shafts are CLT. Structural solutions were developed to ensure longevity and easy maintenance. The simple use of materials facilitates recycling at the end of the cycle. The building merges industrial construction with craftsmanship. Exposed spruce structures and spruce and ash interiors exhibit the natural diversity of wood, imperfections are part of the beauty. Finnish granite used on the façades, on the pavement, and inside connects the building to its urban context. The building’s versatile outdoor spaces create a small enclave of nature. They reflect Nordic nature with natural habitats—a birch grove in the courtyard and archipelago meadows on the roof.