Pasilan Konepaja Housing is part of the evolution of turning the old railway engineering workshop area into a residential district. In the past decades, there has been an ongoing trend to transform old industrial areas, railway yards and harbour areas into residential districts.

Pasilan Konepaja Housing was designed by NRT Architects and completed in 2015. The plan was based on five consecutive blocks divided by leafy alleys. The alleys are slightly twisted to deviate from the right-angle set of coordinates, so that movement infuses into the space entity.  The long facades of the first two blocks create a welcoming part for the whole area.

The blocks are cut by a pedestrian route. The coloured metal cladding in the cross-sectional surfaces of the brick buildings adds an accent to the pedestrian path. The pedestrian route has different coloured portals from one yard to another.

The use of red-brick reflects the old industrial area outfit, which is also brick cladding. The broken roofline characterizes the area and makes its profile a castle-like. The courtyards of the blocks are placed on the brightest side of the complex. The leafiness of the yards creates oases to the rough urban blocks.

The free placement of the balconies and the variation in the window sizing and placing animate the facades. The floor plan is efficient, with four to six apartments on each floor landing. There are no rectangular spaces in the flats, so the distant views open from each entrance and from each apartment.

Source: Finnish Architectural Review 4/2009