Community center Šielâ

The Šielâ community center, completed in the Inari parish in the fall of 2024, is a hub for local services. It houses a comprehensive school (from preschool to ninth grade) and a health center. Additionally, the center serves as a base for youth services, a community college, and sports clubs.

The municipality of Inari decided to demolish a school building from the 1960s that had indoor air quality problems. They opted to construct a new multi-purpose building on the same site, along the Juutuanjoki River.

The project was secured through a turnkey construction contract, with Sakela Rakennus Oy chosen as the main contractor after a competitive negotiation process.

The school is organized into three wings joined by a high central area. Careful consideration of the multi-purpose building’s location and shape led to the successful preservation of most of the existing Scots pines and natural forest floor on the site. This thoughtful design provides occupants of the learning and lobby areas with beautiful views of the surrounding nature, especially the lower rapids of the Juutuanjoki River. Furthermore, the building’s placement on the plot effectively separates vehicle and maintenance traffic from the schoolyards and pedestrian routes.

As Finland’s only quadrilingual municipality, Inari’s school provides instruction in Finnish, Inari Sámi, and Northern Sámi across all grade levels. The school’s pedagogical approach is shaped by these diverse language groups and their fluctuating sizes, which was a key consideration in the layout and dimensions of the premises.

The Šielâ multi-purpose building features wooden exterior walls and a wooden roof, with its facade clad in iron green-treated spruce boards. This wood-clad structure, which will naturally weather to a soft gray under the sun’s UV radiation, harmonizes beautifully with its surroundings: the flowing Juutuanjoki River, the site’s ancient pine trees, and a rocky hill.

Inside, the central lobby makes a striking impression with a glass wall offering expansive views of the river landscape and warm pine paneling. A performance stage in the lobby serves daily as a focal point for morning ceremonies and guest performances. The entire school community can comfortably gather on the wooden-framed auditorium staircase. Beneath it all, the building’s robust foundation is a reinforced concrete column-beam-slab system.

The building was named “Šielâ,” an Inari Sámi word meaning a birth gift given to a newborn child, following a community naming competition. A key objective in its design was to celebrate and sustain Sámi and Lappish cultures. This aim was met through continuous dialogue with the building’s users and client throughout the design phase.

Šielâ’s cultural emphasis is reflected in its integration with the environment, the materials used, its welcoming atmosphere, practical functionality, and even its smallest details. It has become a vibrant, modern village house fully embraced by the community, with its inviting spaces bustling from morning till night, every day of the week.

Tuomas Niemelä, a partner at alt Arkkitehdit Oy, served as the project manager for the architectural design of the Šielâ. Niemelä has an extensive background as a designer on numerous school and cultural center projects.

Chief Designer: Ville-Pekka Ikola
Building Designer: Antti Karsikas
Architectural Design Project Manager: Tuomas Niemelä
Other Designers: Kalle Vahtera, Anniina Valjus and Hanna-Kaisa Karppinen