Soittaja Daycare Centre

The Soittaja Daycare Centre is a welcoming, child-sized building on Soittajantie Street in Helsinki’s Kannelmäki district. It is also Helsinki’s first public daycare centre to be granted the Nordic Swan Ecolabel. Wood predominates inside and out, being visible everywhere in the daycare centre. Every surface the children, staff, and visitors touch, lean on, or breathe in is made of wood.

Read the article in Finnish here.

The design is the winner of a competition arranged in 2021. At the time of entry, the design’s nickname was the “Lion’s Mane” due to the building’s distinctive, folded mass. The wooden surface mimics a lion’s colouring and makes it child-friendly and approachable. A fold in the building mass shelters the courtyard while creating an inviting main entrance and engaging views of Soittajantie Street. Folds in the roof ridge add architectural elegance to the long façade, with the courtyard’s glass porches and canopies flowing naturally from the undulating roof.

The simple floor plan is easy to navigate. The children’s groups are spilt between pairs of rooms, each with their own bright hallway and dining area. Offering views of Soittajantie Street, these dining areas also allow children to come together for larger games and gatherings, giving educators another option besides the gymnasium. Thanks to its narrow frame, the building interiors receive plenty of light. A wide corridor for activities forms the central core of the building, with room for children to play, move around, store their things, and get active with arts and crafts. This builds a sense of flexibility and community among the different groups. For evening use, spaces in the middle are easily set up for visitor access. The functional areas are designed for sustainability over their life cycle: they differ as little as possible to allow the same furniture to be used interchangeably.

The outdoor areas are flexible. A covered terrace and paved area along the entire façade connect the indoors to the outdoors and conveniently reduce the amount of sand tracked in by children. The courtyard is designed to allow children to touch, see, and feel as they improve their motor skills. Areas with playground equipment are clearly delineated and secure, while older children can go wild on the bike path. The quiet northern edge by the sports park even has gardening, in line with the Nordic Swan Ecolabel.

During the design phase, the team considered an all-wood building but decided on a concrete frame for fire safety reasons. This allows visible surfaces to use wood. As construction started, the contractor Kymppirakenne suggested wooden roof elements. This invaluable idea proved an extraordinary success and was the key to the undulating roof shape.

We have been delighted with how much our visitors praise the acoustics and the small-scale feel of the building. As a material, wood is gentle, soft, calming and timeless.

These are the very same attributes that we value in the preschool educators with whom we trust our children for the day, that preschool educators value in the busy working parents trusting them with their children, and that everyone appreciates in children playing in groups. We chose wood for the building surfaces because it is beautiful and environmentally sustainable.

It somehow makes the world a kinder place, and we believe that it also makes people happier.

Technical solutions

The daycare centre is a comfy nest made from softwood. Wood in its various forms was chosen because it ages beautifully and is easy to maintain.

The façades have vertical cladding of finely sawn spruce coloured a soft honey. Visitors walk in and out over terrace planks of European-grown Siberian larch, and the surrounding pine glulam pillars resemble tree trunks to give the terrace a comforting, safe feel. A spruce tree provides shelter from rain and the scorching sun outside, and spruce continues on the cladding of the terrace’s folding canopies.

Created by Aikkon, wall coverings made from knotless pinewood slats form the backbone of the interior. They are backed by acoustic wool and treated to fire class C. Doors on indoor fixtures are solid wood REMA panels or birch plywood and can handle the wear and tear of kindergarten activities. Interior doors, window and mirror frames, and even bulletin boards are pine.

The most striking feature of the exterior architecture is the light-hearted roof that makes the building appear more child-friendly in size. Despite its unconventional shape, the roof was quick to assemble from prefabricated wooden elements, meaning no other weather protection was needed during construction. The origami-like roof divides the long terrace into distinct segments reminiscent of a series of treehouses. Since a city plot like this has no sheltering forest, we used the most common sawn timber to make one for the children.

The building is fire class P1, which means the façade attained Class D with no fire protection, but the interior wood surfaces needed a fire-resistant treatment. Particular attention was paid to acoustics: the wall surfaces clad with wood slats tone down noise, making the vast spaces feel like home.

The Nordic Swan Label guided the choice of building services, energy efficiency, and sustainable materials. The outer shell of the narrow-framed building is simple, compact, and energy efficient. The interiors are bright and easy to navigate and meet the strict natural light requirements of the Nordic Swan Ecolabel. The materials also have the Nordic Swan label, which means they are healthy, safe, and environmentally friendly. To attain the Nordic Swan label, a building must be energy efficient and environmentally friendly during construction, use, and eventual recycling. As an example, 80 percent of construction waste was successfully recycled in this project.

Construction

2020 Design competition organised by the City of Helsinki 2020 Design work begins 2021 Building permit and call for turnkey construction tenders 2021–24 Construction 1/2024 Opening ceremony for the new building

The project used a turnkey contract. The design was finalised as much as possible before construction was opened to tenders. As construction started, the contractor Kymppirakenne suggested wooden roof elements. This invaluable idea proved an extraordinary success and was the key to the collaboratively designed roof shape. The daycare centre’s leadership also took part in the planning, and the children had their say in the choice of playground equipment. We have been delighted with how much the users praise the building now that it is in use.