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News • Helsinki • Finland • 2012-11-01

WDC Helsinki 2012 Pavilion’s story continues

The Pavilion, located between Design Museum and the Museum of Finnish Architecture, was the centre of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012’s summer activities with more than 80,000 visitors. Now the Pavilion has been dismantled and the building’s story gets a sequel.

The Pavilion’s building materials will be reutilised, and the result will be presented at the 2013 Habitare Fair\'s Trash Design Department. Between four and six internationally well-known architects or architect offices will be invited to come up with ideas for the reuse of the Pavilion building materials with a design for a small structure. Habitare is the biggest furniture, interior decoration and design fair in Finland.

The Pavilion will turn into the third Trash Design implementation representing experimental and progressive reuse of materials. The two other implementations seen at Habitare Fair have been the Trash Home (2011) and the Trash Design Hotel (2012). The concept is a joint project by the Finnish Fair Corporation and two well-known designers, Isa Kukkapuro-Enbom and Henrik Enbom.

Pavilion’s reuse important for UPM

The Pavilion’s wood and composite materials were provided by World Design Capital Helsinki 2012’s main partner, UPM, and after being dismantled, the Pavilion became the property of UPM again. UPM’s decision to reuse the building materials has pleased all parties. The Pavilion’s reuse is also an example of UPM\'s Biofore Strategy which emphasises the use of renewable and recycled materials.

- The Pavilion has conveyed a forceful message of the possibilities offered by eco building and UPM’s innovative products. It is important to us that the Pavilion’s materials continue their design journey. It will be interesting to see what the internationally renowned architects come up with using the materials, says Elisa Nilsson, Vice President for Brand Management at UPM.

Dialogue on the Pavilion’s legacy to remain active

WDC Helsinki 2012 Pavilion was a joint project by Aalto University, the Museum of Finnish Architecture, Design Museum, UPM and World Design Capital Helsinki 2012. The aim was to create a new, open meeting place in an urban environment and to offer a sense of community as well as to provoke discussion on better cities.

- The Pavilion transformed a car park into a meaningful place, which now comes across vacant. I hope that we have accelerated the discussion on the use of urban spaces as well as Design Museum\'s and the Museum of Finnish Architecture’s space issue, says Kaarina Gould, Programme Director of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.

The Pavilion’s programme was coordinated by think tank Demos Helsinki and implemented by more than a hundred different parties from designers to non-governmental organisations and from civil service departments and civil servants to urban activists and universities. The creators\' and visitors’ eagerness speaks of the major demand for an activity base such as the Pavilion.

Pavilion’s visitors and creators were enthusiastic

The Pavilion offered free-of-charge, open programme and entertainment on 105 days in total. The wooden pavilion designed by Aalto University Wood Studio’s student and expert team represented new age architecture and embodied Finnish wood building at its best. There were 80,000 visitors to the Pavilion in total.

- Design Museum is an international meeting place for design. The heart of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, the Pavilion, functioned as an active meeting place during the 2012 summer season, providing people with an opportunity to experience design in an unaffected and relaxed atmosphere. The Pavilion highlighted the museums’ space shortage in concrete terms and gave a glimpse of the possibilities appropriate premises would offer, says Director of the Design Museum Jukka Savolainen.

- The Museum of Finnish Architecture is looking for an open meeting place which would be easy to approach and also function as a flexible event space. The museum building is short of such as space, and the need for one has become more obvious during World Design Capital Helsinki 2012. The Pavilion and its events helped us reach new people and increased the number of museum visitors. The museum\'s aim was also to vitalise the yard space used as a car park and the entire district, says Juulia Kauste, the Director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture.

- The Pavilion provided Aalto University Wood Studio’s students with a unique learning experience and brought forward young creators. The Pavilion\'s student and personnel team implemented the design and building project from start to finish, from the first drafts to the launch of the completed building. Aalto University’s aim to cooperate extensively with different players was realised in an interesting way in the overall Pavilion project. The Pavilion is a good example of the things and products that can be made using and refining Finnish wood by professionally and innovatively combining sustainable wood building, tradition, design and the future, says Dean Helena Hyvönen, from Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture.

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