Denisa Badoi

Competition: Europan Finland 2015
Program: Student housing
Title: Forest Inside
Collaborators: Alexandru Barbu, Silviu Capucean, Carla De Sabata, Oana Popa, Roxana Orasteanu
Brief: “The Adaptable City” was the main theme of the 13th edition of Europan and the site we chose to operate in is located in Espoo, a small campus city near Helsinki. The masterplan of the campus was design by Alvar Aalto and some campus buildings are also his work, the most famous one being the Auditorium. The task of the competition was to design a living complex both for students and professors keeping in mind the protected natural area surrounding the shore and also the relationship with the existing constructions.
Summary: The site of the project is found at the center of the distance between Helsinki and Tapiola, the garden city. The costal path that connects our site with Helsinki has some restrictions in the period of summer and that is why we proposed to divert the path through our natural reservation. This way we create a fluent promenade and an interaction between the inhabitants and the passers-by. Furthermore, we extended the green belt that connects with Tapiola in the south and linked the Helsinki path with it. At an urban scale this intervention will solve a problem of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and will also promote our building together with Otaniemi campus. The building consisted of a structure composed of a grid of beams and columns in which the living modules can be inserted or pulled out individually thus generating a flexible and constantly adapting form. The suspended path would cross the nature within the interior space created by the structure and will function as a belvedere. The interior space would be occupied by the strong nature which will be allowed to grow freely and spontaneously and to continuously adapt to light and human actions.Students can choose to buy the units when they finish their studies and can accommodate new functions in them or to transport them elsewhere, for example on a private domain. When modules are removed from the structure new empty spaces are form that make way for the sunlight to enter. This way the actions of men shape the forest inside and thus a new level of communication is born between the inhabitants and the contained nature.