Public places and parks in city life have a huge significance for local people to be able to meet with nature. That is the reason why nature and public places in Helsinki are important for us as well. At the same time, we can see the importance that Alvar Aalto gives to nature in his designs in Helsinki. These are main factors that create our design idea; protecting the public park. During the design process, we thought about how can the park be protected for a long time. We made a firm decision about our design idea when we saw photographs of the area which is used by large number of people. Hence, we did not want to destroy the local people’s meeting point with nature and also we thought that wood artisians who are using natural pieces in their art may want to be closer to nature. Moreover, in the buildings of Alvar Aalto we saw that nature is also important and we are mostly impressed by the stairs of Säynätsalo Town Hall. While thinking about the park, we also had to create a common surface suitable for not only the park, but also the architecture programs which are placed in underground. This issue also played a big role in our design process and we also thought that people should be able to visit the exhibition over the park thanks to the surface that we have planned. There is a level difference that cannot be ignored in the area. Since we want people to reach the park comfortably in all four ways around the area, we closed this level difference by dividing the surface of the park into steps and we placed these steps according to the architectural programs which are underground. We placed the architectural programs underground so that this public park can maintain its own character on the surface. We divided the programmes and also our building into two parts, suitable places for public use and housings. In order to solve the lighting and ventilation problem in the building, we have created two large spaces on the ground. In addition to this, while these two large spaces provide access to underground programs directly, people can also reach the bottom floor by walking through ramps inside of the building. Moreover, we placed glass on some of the surfaces on the ceilings of public spaces, which have larger areas than housing part, such as the exhibition rooms, library and reception to maket hem take advantage of daylight more. We covered some of the surfaces of the steps -which divide the park’s surface- with glass and some of the surfaces of the steps with trees and plants. Another idea with these glass surfaces is that people can see the exhibition rooms from the park. Hence, people who come to the park could see some of the artworks; thus, they can enjoy both the park and the artworks at the same time. In conclusion, our main idea in this project is protecting the public park and make it more reachable for people. Therefore, the park and the surface of park have huge influence on our design. In addition, we want people to enjoy both the park and our building. We thought that designing under trees could also be inspiring for wood craftsmen and thanks to the park it is easier to be socializing close to ztheir homes. the surface of park have huge influence on our design.
