A new villa in the Turku archipelago

The customer dreamed of an environmentally friendly, sustainable house that would soothe the senses, with comforting architecture based on simple and natural materials. This healthy home would accommodate its residents’ sensitivity to chemicals, electricity, and electromagnetic fields. The design was to be timeless yet modern, providing work for local artisans during construction and an exhibition space for art when completed.

The house is split into a wooden and a brick section: the entrance and wet rooms are built from 490 mm thick cellular bricks, whereas the living spaces have walls made from 200 mm thick aspen logs. Compared to other types of wood, aspen contains very little terpene, making it practically odourless.

The villa has a gabled roof, except for the high-ceilinged greenhouse with its pent roof. The bedroom appears to extend outdoors thanks to its glass veranda. Uninsulated, this buffer zone between the interior and exterior is perfect for airing out bedlinen or simply for enjoying the natural surroundings. The cool, airy space alleviates the customer’s struggles with chemical and electrical sensitivity. A heat-retaining fireplace in the centre provides warmth for the living spaces.

Each room has an individually sized view of the surrounding nature: the windows on the forest side are small, while those facing west showcase a more ample landscape overlooking a field. Enlivened by a rowan tree planted in the middle, a small courtyard formed by the brick walls is tucked into the centre of the building.

The softness of the human touch is visible in the building’s skilful handiwork. The most demanding details were the railings, the stone walls, the shingle cladding of the exterior walls, and the storage fixtures, which include cabinets and shelves integrated into the walls.

Kristina Riska, a ceramic artist, was invited along when the building’s design phase had only just begun. Riska created a piece of art in the exterior wall plastering, a sculpture on a platform built in the fireplace, and an installation in a quaint window niche. Select Finnish art is on display in most of the spaces.

The house provides a multi-sensory spatial experience that feels gentle and welcoming. There are no odours, and the rooms have soft, intimate acoustics. One can almost feel the atmosphere of each room, with the lowest ceilings within touching distance and the bright greenhouse a lofty four metres high.

The exterior cladding is painted green in harmony with the surroundings, but no cladding or surface treatment was used on the log walls indoors.

Technical solutions

The house has none of the multi-layer structures that are typically prone to moisture problems. The monolithic log wall insulates, stores heat, binds moisture, and improves indoor air quality while giving the rooms pleasant acoustics. Ventilation is gravity-based, and the building has an open, ventilated crawl space underneath.

The log walls of hand-carved aspen are put together with corner post construction with visible dovetail joints in the inner corners. The walls have supporting pillars, supported in turn by the foundation stones, and thatch insulates against capillary moisture transfer.

The façades are clad with vertical spruce boards treated with petroleum oil paint. In contrast, the pine shingle cladding is untreated, as are the basket-weave handrails made of pine heartwood.

Construction

A group of experts got together at the project’s very beginning and handled it from start to finish. Being far from ordinary, the project piqued the curiosity and creativity of its participants. Restart, the company overseeing the project, was already well rehearsed in demanding renovation projects. Its beautiful workmanship is apparent throughout the house and a key part of its atmosphere.

The project began in the summer of 2021 by gathering key personnel and drawing up plans. Restart managed the project as a so-called overall contract, which was completed on January 8th, 2024.

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