location
Helsinki, Finland
client
Helsinki Workers’ Association, HTY
Status
Completed in 2012
Building area
13,500 m2
award
Wienerberger Brick Award 2014, The Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award 2013
The Paasitorni building was originally designed in the early 1900s by architect Karl Lindahl to house the Helsinki Workers’ Association. The iconic building underwent careful transformation to conference center and a hotel space with 170 rooms in 2012. Collaborating with Helsinki City Museum and Finland’s National Board of Antiquities, K2S designed a plan where parts of the existing building were converted into hotel spaces, but the most radical change took place in the courtyard where an existing building was replaced by a completely new hotel wing. The contemporary addition to the existing historical elements of the building is an ivory-white, custom-made brick wall that has been designed to glow like a snow lantern at night.