Kumpula Student Housing

Kumpula Student Housing is a large block of flats on the side of Kustaa Vaasan tie, which is one of the main roads leading to Helsinki downtown. The block of flats is infill to an early 20th-century wooden house area.

Kumpula Student Housing is one of the many student housing developments designed by Playa Architects. The building was completed in 2018.

The apartments could not be located on the Kustaa Vaasan tie due to traffic noise, and this led to a gallery access solution. The vertical ”pleats” of the façade disperse the traffic noise, thus protecting the low-rise residential area across the road. The use of an unusual abstract façade in a residential building connects it more intuitively to the surrounding teaching and research buildings of the neighbouring Kumpula campus and their scale than a conventional apartment building would.

Source: Finnish Architectural Review 1/2019