Inviting flexibility in a cultural environment
The new Ruusupuisto building of the University of Jyväskylä is a four-story college building that houses the workspaces of the Faculty of Education and the Research Institute of Education. It also houses the faculty’s teaching facilities. There are approx. 300 workplaces in the building and the daily number of students is approx. 1000.
The building is functionally segmented into two sections. The ground floor, along with the lobbies on the 2nd and 3rd floors, serves as public spaces accessible to all, encircled by teaching rooms of various sizes. On floors 2-4 there are modern workspaces, designed to be as flexible as possible and to enable the use of the latest teaching technology. At the core of the structure is the expansive oak staircase located in the ground floor hall, which extends upwards as the main staircase to the higher levels.
In terms of cityscape, the building is located in a very challenging environment. It sits next to two protected (level 1) museum buildings designed by Alvar Aalto, in a nationally valuable built cultural environment. The Central Finland Museum and the Alvar Aalto Museum are small in scale compared to Aalto’s other monumental buildings of the same era. The residential area around the construction site predominantly consists of detached homes and small apartment buildings. In contrast, Ruusupuisto is considerably larger but is segmented into smaller sections by indentations in the building’s mass. Correspondingly, the height of the building has been adapted to the height of the adjacent museum building. The building does not have an actual main facade, but due to its location in an open area, all four facades are equally significant in terms of cityscape.
The main facade material of the new building is a finely washed, warm white concrete. The concrete facades are precast and load-bearing. As a complementary facade material, expanded aluminum perforated plate has been used, which forms the facade surface of the 1st floor and the “pedestal” of the building, covering the windows of the teaching facilities. The same plates have been used around the window openings on the upper floors. The back walls of the recesses between building parts are made of glass and are partly silk-screened.
Due to the difference in height between the plot and the adjacent road, as well as the parking garage placed under the patio cover, the building is connected to terraced slopes and walls made of black, fine-washed concrete.
The courtyard areas of the building are predominantly paved. The landscaping is inspired by the neighboring Ruusupuisto (rose garden), incorporating a wide variety of plant and tree species across the property.
To accommodate staff and students, the facility includes 65 parking spaces in the underground cold parking garage beneath the courtyard, along with a total of 400 bicycle parking spots on the premises.
The building has been awarded a Breeam certificate (Very Good).
Facts
| Client | Suomen Yliopistokiinteistöt SYK |
| Location | Jyväskylä |
| Year | 2015 |
| Size | 9000 kem² |
