The office building at Kansakoulukatu 3 (KOO3) is open for new business.
Services and facilities supporting communality and office work, such as a café and restaurant services, rentable meeting spaces, and an event space, were accommodated into the Kansakoulukatu property.
Completed in 1931 as a vocational school in Kamppi, Helsinki, the building has for the past decades served as the office of the City of Helsinki’s City Planning Department. The facades of the building are protected in the city plan under the SR-2 class.
In addition to the original building, the design scope included the underground extension designed by Juhani Pallasmaa and constructed in the 1990s in connection with an office renovation.
The planning began in 2018, when the new owner of the property, CapMan Real Estate, decided to commission a major renovation for the property and an extension to the attic. The property was initially considered for hotel use, but eventually modern office spaces were decided to be designed.
During the general planning phase, particular attention was paid to the property’s adaptability and passageways. Converting a cold attic into an office space was an intriguing design task, as attractive new office spaces were being planned inside a new kind of framework.
In the design for the changes to the underground extension by Pallasmaa, the original nature of the premises was taken into account by, for example, preserving and acknowledging the concrete surfaces of the floors, pillars, and intermediate floors as well as the original integrated lights in the intermediate floors. The glass brick wall facing the Tavastia yard and typical of the era of construction was rebuilt using low-energy glass bricks. A café and conference rooms were designed for the underground spaces and onto the ground floor to support office work and build a sense of community. The underground facilities and the changes in the yard were designed with the operations of Innovation Home in mind, as they were selected as the operator in 2021.
