Once the Kruunuvuori bridge is completed, Harkko will be visible to everyone traveling from the city center to Kruunuvuorenranta, becoming part of the seafront elevation of the new district. Consideration was given to the building’s integration into the uniform perimeter of a large city block, in the middle of which taller, light-colored apartment buildings will be situated. Therefore, the building’s color scheme was designed to echo the colors of the granite cliffs and trees surrounding the site. Artist Jaakko Niemelä created portraits of the trees felled at the site for the courtyard.

The design process involved stacking blocks on top of one another, which is evident in the building’s appearance. Identical apartments were laid out to create two volumes aligned with the streets, and quirky apartments were designed at the ends of the buildings to fill the leftover space and make the elevations more visually dynamic. A tension exists between the two volumes, prompting the creation of an entry piazza between them to admit light into the courtyard. The two top floors are slightly shorter than the others to comply with the maximum height specified in the local plan. In front of the glass wall, a copy of the wood lattice wall designed for the green elevations of a housing block in Jätkäsaari was created to filter sunlight and soften the building’s appearance.

Source: Architect Pia Ilonen’s interview in Finnish Architectural Review 4/2021