Now

Hakunila Housing

19.2.2009
NOW’s Hakunila housing scheme is being reviewed by the City of Vantaa Urban Planning Board in March, as Vantaa’s Urban Planning Department has prepared a amendment proposal for the lot use. Construction is scheduled to start in Autumn 2009.

Towards Greater Helsinki 2050

25.1.2009
The final report for the Greater Helsinki Vision 2050 continuation work can be downloaded here (in Finnish). The report contains analysis and assessment of ideas from the competition phase, workshop and citizen participation results and policy recommendations for future planning for the metropolitan region. In collaboration with WSP Finland, YTK/TKK and Demos Helsinki.

Lakeside house published

25.1.2009
NOW’s Lakeside house featured on the cover of Elle Decor Italy’s February issue. Giorgio Possenti took the wonderful photos, and Laura Maggio wrote the piece.

Nijiyura tenugui

20.12.2008
Nijiyura tenugui was made in collaboration by NAKANI and Nene Tsuboi. The patterns Aurora and Niji (means Rainbow in Japanese) are introduced in Monocle’s Christmas gift guide 2008.

Marumaru Mugs

15.12.2008
Marumaru mugs are made in collaboration by iittala and Nene Tsuboi (Mitsumaru). Now available at NAPA Gallery in Helsinki and at the new
Monocle shop in London.

Espoo Hospitality

12.12.2008
NOW’s entry “Espoo Hospitality” for the Espoo Hospital two-stage open architectural competition was disqualified. C’est la vie!

Kontupiste works.

12.12.2008
Kontupiste is a community center proposed and designed by Roosa and Tuomas Toivonen in 2002 for the Urban II community initiative project in Kontula, Helsinki. A new study shows that the community center, and the local projects that it has supported and fostered have had a major role in turning around reputation the troubled neighbourhood, and created positive development in the area.

A living room, big house for Inari

5.12.2008
Sámi Cultural Centre architectural competition is settled. NOW’s entry “Stohpu” was made in collaboration with Nao Saito.

Y-house permit drawings submitted

1.12.2008
Permit drawings submitted for Y-house, a seaside weekend home. Construction will start in early 2009.

Iittala Ginza mug launch

28.11.2008
Nene Tsuboi designed a limited edition mug “Villit eläimet” for the opening of Iittala’s new Ginza store in Tokyo, Japan.

Archives

ARCHITECTURE

EGO

Office Interior, Helsinki, 2007

STAIR = PUBLIC SPACE

The company’s offices are spread in adjacent spaces in several buildings. The new lobby and stairs connect and serve 2000 m2 of offices that were also refurbished as part of this project. The new stair-lobby connects different levels and acts as an meeting space with urban qualities for employees and clients.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Lauri Johansson, Hans Park, Christian Göbel, Dylan Kwok
Client: Taivas / EGO / Beta, Helsinki, Finland, 2007
Photo: Niklas Kullström

Click for images.

ESPOO HOSPITALITY

Hospital Competition, Espoo, Finland, 2008

NEW ESPOO HOSPITAL

The hospital of tomorrow as a city of care and well-being. By incorporating a range of new programs and housing to the hospital, it becomes an active part of everyday life - a building to visit in order to stay healthy and being able to enjoy living. NOW’s proposal is based on creating a rich urban variance and density within a large building complex, while maintaining the scheme’s functional and cognitive clarity.

Project team: Tuomas Toivonen, Ville Haimala, Petri Herrala, Martti Kalliala, Outi Pirhonen
Client: Open 2-stage competition organised by the City of Espoo, Finland, 2008

Click for images.

HAKUNILA HOUSING TOWER

Housing, Vantaa, Finland, 2007- (ongoing)

SENIOR HOUSING

Lot use re-evaluation, elderly housing.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Petri Herrala
Client: As. Oy Hakunilantie 62A, Vantaa, Finland, 2007

Click for images.

MTV3

TV-News Studio, Helsinki, 2006

360° NEWS STUDIO

The news studio is placed on a rotating platform, making it possible to run dynamic transitions, have different backgrounds and settings from different broadcasts, and use the same desk and cameras in all positions.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Petri Herrala, Hedwig Heinsman, Tatu Metsätähti
Photo: Matti Pyykkö
Client: MTV3, Helsinki, Finland, 2006

Click for images.

SAUNALAHTI SCHOOL

Saunalahti school competition, Espoo, Finland, 2007

LEARNING TOGETHER

NOW’s proposal for a new school building in Saunalahti, Espoo. The different age-groups have their own distinct indoor and outdoor areas with different pedagogic-spatial logic and hierarchy, but the common functions remain shared throughout the school years.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Martti Kalliala, Ville Haimala, Petri Herrala
Client: Competition, Espoo, Finland, 2007

Click for images.

SHANGHAI 2010

Finnish Pavillion for Shanghai 2010 Expo, Shanghai, China, 2008

GREEN GIFTS

The pavilion is a simple and light building, its outermost layer made of shelves, lined with potted plants. The vegetal facade provides shadow and good microclimate for the simple and plain interiors. The building is to be dismanteled and rebuilt after the expo, and all its materials are generic and recyclable. During and after the Expo the plants grown on the facade can be given away to visitors, making the city greener, the air cleaner, and people happier

NOW’s entry “Puutarhassa” was awarded purchace prize in the Finnish Pavilion Shanghai 2010 Expo competition.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen and Marti Kalliala with Ville Haimala, Satoshi Yoshida and Nene Tsuboi
Client: Finnpro, Expo 2010, Shanghai, China, 2008

Click for images.

STOCKHOLM PUBLIC LIBRARY

Competition, Stockholm, Sweden, 2006

BOOK STAIR

The Asplund library extension is based on creating a compact, united library service and experience for Stockholm. The new building is a dense stack of minimal shelves connecting the 1930’s built North Wing and Annex A. Through the center of the new building, a new public space - the book stair - connects and links all the floors and their contents.

Project team: Tuomas Toivonen, Hans Park, Martti Kalliala, Petri Herrala
Client: Open competition organised by the City of Stockholm, Sweden, 2006

Click for images.

YUKKI

Housing, St. Petersburg, 2007

PLATEAUX

NOW was commissioned a plan for 16 luxury residences on a forested lot near St. Petersburg. The houses were to be large - 800m2 with large living quarters, impressive entrances, staff rooms and kitchens, a spa with an indoor swimming pool, multi-car garages and parking. The site was beautiful, but difficult: a very steep north slope, covered with trees and thick vegetation.

How to preserve the natural values of the site while creating residences with unique character?

The Yukki house has a small footprint, and is built adjacent to exisiting roads, with a minimal impact to the fragile landscape. The living floor is elevated to the forest canopy, with its roof becoming a terrace belvedere, while the service floor is pushed into the slope, so that its roof become the front yard, directly accessible from the road

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Ville Haimala, Martti Kalliala
Client: Undisclosed, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2007

Click for images.

URBANISM

APPARA URBAN VILLAGE

Competition, Hämeenlinna, Finland, 2005

LIFESTYLE CHOICE

The Poltinaho area is built as a dense collection of the most popular types of residential neighbourhood types from the last century forming an urban village. Each neighbourhood represents a way of living and offers different kind of urban quality for its inhabitants. Together they form a rich and diverse community, centered around a single street and an urban square. In this case the ancient military champs de mars becomes the heart of the village, having a new life as a parking plaza - a program with latent, yet surprising social potential -surrounded by public and retail programs.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Nene Tsuboi, Tuomas Kivinen, Ville Haimala.
Client: City of Hämeenlinna, Finland, 2005

Click for images.

IDDAWALK

Competition, Kristiansand, Norway, 2005

URBAN RENEWAL IN KRISTIANSAND

1,5 km linear building complex creates a path from Idda to the city centre, and bulges with sports, shopping and housing programs. In Idda, it encloses a park, a sports field, schools and a church.

Project team: Tuomas Toivonen, Nene Tsuboi, Ville Haimala
Client: EUROPAN 8 competition, Kristiansand, Norway, 2005

Click for images.

RENAISSANCE

Competition, Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland, 2007

AN URBAN FUTURE FOR THE HELSINKI METROPOLITAN AREA

Our other proposal for the Greater Helsinki Vision 2050 competition. This project illustrated the urban “hardware”, showing methods and case studies for creating cityness based on a lattice network of public rail transport, while Towards City 2.0 focused on outlining an urban operating system and culture.

Project team: Tuomas Toivonen, Martti Kalliala, Ville Haimala
Public transport consultant: Kerkko Vanhanen
Client: Greater Helsinki Region (MAL-neuvottelukunta) , FInland, 2007

Click for images.

TOWARDS CITY 2.0

Competition, Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland, 2007

Towards City 2.0 proposes a new operating system for the Metropolitan Region that involves and invites individuals, companies and communities to take part in changing and building the city together.
- - -
We, our children, and their children’s children will live in cities. What will be our contribution? How to re-invent the city? The only way planning can deliver change and offer improvements in the quality is by engaging inhabitants in planning and implementation. For this purpose we have created a city that builds itself. The duopoly of state and business is over. As we face massive change brought by the challenges and possibilities of tomorrow, we need a new way of thinking and doing to develop the city, a new operating system and user interface for Helsinki Metropolitan Region. Our new challenge is to create a New Public - to link up communities with each other and create a city that fosters urban mass innovations for lifestyle, economy, planning, culture, ecology and services. Big dreams and decisions are necessary. We propose creating a region-wide ambititious and visionary leadership level while shifting the power of applying and implementing the strategies closer to the local neighborhood level. This re-structuring of the urban planning, management and land use policy aims at creating a smarter, faster, livelier, and more diverse city for all.
- - -
Towards City 2.0 was awarded the shared 2nd prize, and NOW + Demos was commissioned to work on the Greater Helsinki 2050 project.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Hans Park in collaboration with Roope Mokka and Aleksi Neuvonen (DEMOS Helsinki)
Client: Greater Helsinki Region (MAL-neuvottelukunta) , FInland, 2007-

Click for images

OTHER

HELSINKI CENTRAL LIBRARY

Study, Helsinki, 2007

A study visualising the current spatial program of the Helsinki Central Library in 2007 commissioned by MP Anni Sinnemäki.

We wanted to show both the public and the decision makers what they are talking about when referring to the future Helsinki Central Library. Can we influence the political and public opinion, generate new dreams and goals, contribute to the process, if we engage early and lobby for more exciting results? What can we show?
Although the building lacks funding and site, it already has a spatial program:
38.1% - Active space: lobbies, exhibitions, info services, auditoriums, cafe, kidspace, etc.
33.8% - Quiet space: bookshelves and reading areas, media collections, media stations.
5.9% - Meeting spaces: workshops, conference rooms, discussion groups, hobby rooms.
11% - Support: administrative, back office, staff quarters
4% - Storage: media storage, media handling
In this study, the building is shown as a flat, siteless, facadeless, roofless terrain of activity - architecture as a diagram, a pie-chart, depicting the different programs and their relations. Now that we have a building, can we imagine its vast new public spaces in the heart of Helsinki. The 10,000 m2 dot stirs the imagination, as it can land anywhere on the map: Kamppi, Töölönlahti, Hakaniemi, Kaisaniemi?

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Martti Kalliala, Christian Göbel, Ville Haimala, Dylan Kwok, Hans Park
Client: Anni Sinnemäki, Helsinki, 2007

Click for images.

JUNKSPACE = MY SPACE

Research, event, Helsinki, 2007

New technologies change the way we perceive our surroundings. Can “junkspace” become bearable, even enjoyable through a personal experience of wireless technology? How will the invisible geographies of open wifi and physical spaces be assimilated to our day-to-day? Can junkspace be my space?

- We photographed public seating in shopping malls and waiting areas in and around Helsinki.
- We wrote a series of texts about the relationship of city, junkspace and technology.
- We made a book.
- We held a party in a deserted hiphop clothing store on the top floor of Kampin keskus, and all guests were given a portable internet tablet.

Project team: Tuomas Toivonen, Hans Park, Dylan Kwok, Martti Kalliala, Petri Herrala
Client: Nokia / Tequila, Finland, 2006

Click for images.

JUSTICE

Cross, Turku, Finland, 2007

CROSS

Team: Tuomas Toivonen
Client: Uuden Musiikin Festivaali, Turku, Finland, 2007

MEGAMUSEUM

Research & exhibition work, Finnish National Gallery, 2007

FINNISH NATIONAL GALLERY PERMANENT COLLECTION

A focus exhibition about the FNG permanent collection. We produced a timeline of key works, a scale model of a museum that would be needed to exhibit all 33,000+ artworks. The building organises the collection chronologically (vertically) and by type of artwork (six wings: drawings, paintings, graphic arts, sculpture, photography, other), thus creating a a quantitative 3-dimensional representation of the collection. Visit megamuseo at Ateneum.

Project team: Tuomas Toivonen, Nenen Tsuboi, Ville Haimala,
Model team: Dylan Kwok, Chris Göbel, Yuko Takagi, Minja Hildén, Satoko Taguma, Satoshi Yoshida, Sayaka Matsubara, Aiko Tsukahara, Momoka Kitano, Shinsaku Fukutaka, Timothy Austin, Marie de Bruyn, Romi Bohnenberg, Ville Haimala, Lauri Johansson, Martti Kalliala, Petri Herrala, Seppo Toivonen
Client: Ateneum / Finnish National Gallery

Photo: Niklas Kullström

NEW ARRIVALS

Exhibition, Helsinki, 2007

15 FINNISH FASHION DESIGNERS

NOW curated and designed the New Arrivals exhibition, boutique and catalogue. Designers featured: Anssi Tuupainen, Aki Choklat, Paola Suhonen, CTRL, Daniel Palillo, Anna & Tuomas Laitinen, Minna Parikka, Tiia Vanhatapio, Rinne-Niinikoski, Hanna Sarén, Janne Lax, Samu-Jussi Koski, Jarno Viitala.

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Lauri Johansson, Ville Haimala
Photo: Niklas Kullström
Client: Design Forum Finland, Helsinki, 2007

Click for images.

REDRUM

Night club interior, Helsinki, 2007

CLUB

The starting points for this night club refurbishment were:
- creating a versatile venue for different club nights and audiences
- a proper DJ-booth, both functionally and performance-wise
- good acoustics to complement the Function One -sound system
- 14 days of construction time, 50K€ building budget

www.redrum.fi

Team: Tuomas Toivonen, Ville Haimala, Martti Kalliala, Lauri Johansson
Photo: Niklas Kullström
Client: Redrum

Click for images.

Info

We develop and design for now, the contemporary condition. The scale and scope of our work extends from city to object, from strategy to detail. Our aim is to make the world more interesting and enjoyable.

NOW for Architecture and Urbanism Oy
Salomonkatu 17 A 4th floor
FIN-00100 Helsinki

office( )nowoffice.org
fax:+358 (0)9 710 910

Tuomas Toivonen
tuomas( )nowoffice.org
+358 (0)40 516 9690

NOW OFFICE Ay
Salomonkatu 17 A 4th floor
FIN-00100 Helsinki

Nene Tsuboi / Mitsumaru
nene( )nowoffice.org
+358 (0)40 765 7450