In Helsinki, There Are Several Neighbourhoods Where You Can Hardly See White – “The Role of the Colours Is to Welcome the Visitor”
Architect Suvi Tyynilä wanted Helsinki’s Kuninkaantammi and Honkasuo districts to be warm, homely and communal places. Colours played an important role in achieving it.
Previously, the site where the small Omenamäki wooden housing area in the Helsinki district of Vuosaari is now located was covered with pine forest, which thinned out at its edge into low grassland.
“I wanted the construction to be in line with this, so I specified colour guidelines in the detailed plan, according to which the houses on the edge of the pine-forest zone had to be painted with tar paint”, says Suvi Tyynilä, the architect responsible for Omenamäki’s detailed plan. She currently works as a Team Manager in Helsinki’s Urban Environment Division.
The plan was completed in 2001, and it was not only Tyynilä’s first work in Helsinki’s urban planning, but also one of the first detailed plans in Finland comprised of wooden apartment blocks.
Apartment blocks and rowhouses were planned at the edge of the pine forest, and low-rise houses on the edge of the meadow. Their colour specification was “light, but not white”. It says a lot about the times, Tyynilä says now.
“White had long been so dominant in architecture, that we were building a lot of white in the 1990s. I felt the need to reject white.”
Their colour specification was “light, but not white”. It says a lot about the times.
Tyynilä was not alone in her counter reaction; rather, during the 2000s colours made a comeback in urban planning on a wider scale. However, they have been used in very different ways in different areas, Tyynilä reflects.
In Helsinki, for example, the Kalasatama district is dominated by discreet brick tones, such as various greys and browns. In the Jätkäsaari district strong colour effects were preferred: large, coloured surfaces and bright accent colours.
The colour scheme of the Koivusaari district, on the other hand, is based on how the area, surrounded by the sea, appears in the landscape as seen from the opposite shorelines. The hues of its colour palette were picked from the surrounding nature, shoreline rocks and reeds, Tyynilä describes.
And then there are Tyynilä’s own districts, Kuninkaantammi and Honkasuo, which were planned during the 2010s, around the same time as the previously mentioned areas, where colours have been especially important from the very beginning.
On Sinooperikuja Alley
According to the detailed plan for Kuninkantammi, “building facades should be colourful, not white. The colours should mainly be muted earth tones in yellow, red or brown, and judiciously used hues of blue and green that match them.”
Tyynilä wanted Kuninkaantammi to be a warm and homely place, “even cheerful and surprising”. Therefore, also the colours had to be warm, muted tones.
One of the reasons was that Kuninkaantammi – located on the border of Vantaa and far from the train and metro lines – remains detached from the rest of the city. To counterbalance this, the area needs its own strong identity and character, something by which it can be easily recognized, says Tyynilä.
“I wanted there to be a kind of feeling of belonging and arriving there. The role of the colours is to welcome the visitor.”
The role of the colours is to welcome the visitor.
Colours can be seen even in the names of the streets which are named after shades of colour.
According to the planning regulations, along the streets “the colour in question should be used as an accent in the detailing of the facade”.
“I have also used the colour for street furniture, such as electricity poles and street lamps. It has been part of a certain storytelling use of colour in the area.”
Ecological Starting Points
One factor that has guided the planning of Kuninkaantammi has been walkability, and the corresponding scales and rhythms.
The detailed plan includes, among other things, an indication that each block unit must be divided into two parts, so that the facade is changed every half block unit through different hues of colour, the architecture or architectural details.
“Instead of a horizontal view, I was looking for a vertical rhythm. It makes walking more fun, and there is always something going on. For example, there are many curved shapes in the area, so something new always opens up at the end of a vista. This and the active character of the ground floor, the fact that there are windows, doors, rhythms and events, carries the pedestrian forward in a welcoming manner. Here, too, colours are very important.”
Whereas Kuninkaantammi is mainly an area of apartment buildings, Honkasuo, located a couple of kilometres away, is an area of low-rise wooden houses. The colour regulations of the areas are, nevertheless, much the same.
“According to the colour regulations for Honkasuo, each building must be a different shade than the neighbouring ones, and each of the dwellings in the row houses must stand out from its neighbours. In my opinion, it brings homeliness and variety to the area, when there is something unique and special in every house.”
In 2018 Tyynilä received the Finnish Association of Architects’ sustainable development award Tunnustuspaanu for the design of Kuninkaantammi and Honkasuo. Ecological goals have been the most important starting points in the design of both areas.
Tyynilä sees colour as part of the same ideology.
“I was hoping for areas where people would enjoy spending time and where a social life would emerge so that people wouldn’t necessarily have to drive somewhere to enjoy themselves. I believe that a sense of community may also contribute to the adoption of climate-smart lifestyles, so that together we will aim for a better future.”
A Shared Story
Helsinki changed its building regulations last year so that property owners no longer need to apply for permission if they change the colour or material of a facade or roof. The decision surprised Tyynilä.
“We haven’t yet had time to gain any experience from this, so I can’t say how it will affect the cityscape. But of course, it’s a bit worrying if the overall compatibility of the colours with the totality and the landscape is no longer monitored.”
Of course, planning regulations must still be followed. A key issue is that exact colour regulations like those for Omenamäki, Kuninkaantammi and Honkasuo are rare in detailed plans. Often the urban plans do not say anything about colours, or only mention, for instance, that the roof must be a dark colour.
When I walk there and see, for instance, a really successful orange, that makes me happy, too.
Even in Kuninkaantammi, there are no separately defined colour hues or a precise colour chart, but rather the architects make their own decisions.
“I trusted that developers and architects know how to design their own sites. I have been happily surprised many times when an area has been completed. When I walk there and see, for instance, a really successful orange, that makes me happy, too.”
Tyynilä stresses that the buildings’ architects have a significant influence on what the areas will ultimately look like.
“As an urban planner, I have an overall idea, a story. And I pass that story on to the architects, who write their own chapter in it. The totality is then generated from this.” ↙