Oulu 10

Invited competition 1st prize for the new part of Oulu city hall administrative building

Oulu10 is an office building in Oulu, Finland, for which a design competition was held in 2003. The architectural firm Sarc + Sigge won the competition with its proposal “Täkänä.” Construction began in 2007, and the building was completed in early 2009.

The building is located in the center of Oulu, in the courtyard of protected buildings constructed in the 1880s, next to apartment buildings built in the 1960s.

The building has two underground basement floors and four above-ground floors. The street level of the building houses the Oulu City customer service point and meeting rooms, which also extend to a single-story log-framed residential building built in 1883 on Hallituskatu. The brick-framed Aleksinkulma courtyard building, known as the “Hansapäätytalo,” located on Hallituskatu and built in 1884, was renovated and incorporated into the Oulu10 complex. The two-story stone building on Torikatu, built in 1883, was also thoroughly renovated as part of the construction project. The office floors of the new building are arranged around a high glass-walled lobby.

The high lobby opens to the north, and the office spaces open up through the lobby to a view over the surrounding buildings towards Oulu Cathedral. The facades of the new building are modern, but connect to the old building stock through features such as the plastered facade surfaces.

The street-level facades are made of glass. The street-level facades are made of glass. The two tall glass recesses in the building’s facades are covered with a concrete lattice pattern in line with the facade, which helps to maintain the building’s uniform appearance.

The main entrance to the building is set back from Torikatu street, creating a new urban square in front of the entrance.

Building history report 2004: https://www.ouka.fi/media/10806/download