INSIDEOUT
01/09/2017
Ibidem D&R-Platform wins the international competition “Aviapolis Urban Block”, Vantaa, Helsinki, Finland, with the project INSIDEOUT
Jury Report
The project is presented as a mosaic
composed of multiple peculiarities and
dimensions interacting at both international
levels and local scales. The combination
between large and high impact buildings
and low density infrastructure has inspired
the search for new spatial relationships
and connections. The main goal of the
proposal is to develop a dense settlement
pattern able to convey an original form of
urbanity and centrality closely connected
to Vantaa’s urban milieu. Aviapolis has
been re-imagined through clusters of
different sizes and building typologies
relying on an open urbanized continuous.
Commercial activities, public and shared
spaces are concentrated along the edges of
the clusters. At the same time, the clusters
protect intimate parks with indoor gardens
and other public facilities, such as indoor
vegetable gardens, studies and playgrounds.
The plan consists of streets, outdoor or
indoor parking, pedestrian paths, squares,
small pavilions, local services, and other
collective components merged into a
uniform surface organized in a configuration
beyond the traditional division into streets
and blocks. The plan is crossed by a green
corridor following the outline of the canal.
Atomi is subdivided and placed in three
points of interest for the area. The schools
are placed in the two facing elements
along the canal within the park. Parking is
organized through three typologies. Robotic
car spaces are vertically inserted in the
buildings, for the provision of residents.
For offices and commercial functions, two
multi-storey parking garages and six robotic
car towers are planned, as well as parking
lots adjacent to collective spaces.
Insideout responds very well to the
competition brief and reinterprets the
cityscape as a dense, diverse and activity-
driven urbanity, stating a new image,
giving Aviapolis a strong identity and a
new landscape in the context of both
international and local concepts. The
cityscape and the overall architectural
approach are developed by putting into
focus the citizens’ urban life, not cutting
an imagined built mass into streets,
superblocks and voids but instead building
urban structure from a playful but still strictly
gridded non-centralistic organisation. It is
more like slowly developed, multifunctional
French or Italian villages than our Nordic
functionally separated suburban projects.
The project could work very well from
a synergistic and community-creating
design perspective. The project has all
opportunities of being a sustainable
urbanity in different levels, from social
sustainability to the management of solar
energy and the delay of the flow of storm
water drainage. The proposal is highly
innovative and shows a different approach
to planning which gives the project high
development potential and viability. All in
all a beautiful proposal.