Kemi Areena

Kemi Areena was born from the need to offer versatile, modern facilities under the same roof for both athletic and public events. This wooden multi-purpose arena is in Kemi’s Sauvosaari neighbourhood: a stunning site by the harbour. This prominence made it crucial that the facility support the city’s urban values in its architecture while serving as a recognisable landmark.

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Kemi is using this project to advance its program for arctic wood construction. The city strives towards sustainable development and a low carbon footprint, which made an environmentally friendly wooden structure a natural choice. Run as a turnkey project, Rave Rakennus Oy was the main contractor and UKI Arkkitehdit Oy handled the main and architectural designs.

The construction site lies at the end of the sweeping Meripuistokatu boulevard on the south-east side of the Kemi swimming pool complex, which was designed by Aarne Ervi and built in 1967. When approached from its main access, the mass of the Kemi Areena seems subordinate to the swimming pool, thanks to the low profile of the bowling alley and entryway. If desired, the arena can later be connected to the pool building in a renovation or eventual construction of a new swimming complex. With its row of illuminated pilasters, the arena’s façade stands as a stunning end piece to the sports park.

Bevelled fibre cement façade panels and robust eaves give the exterior a stately feel that is balanced by the lively spruce panels painted in a pale yellow-beige. The natural wooden hues of the load-bearing glulam column/beam framework and CLT exterior walls have been left visible in the interior. The aim was to use plenty of wood, in a variety of forms, in wall surfaces, furnishings, and wherever else it felt natural. The interior wooden surfaces have been treated for fire protection. In the interior colour scheme, designers chose harmonious and organic tones that match the building façade. Textiles provide pops of colour, but even these tones are restrained and earthy.

The Kemi Areena has clearly delineated spaces, whose functional design is the result of a close collaboration with user representatives. The building has facilities for a variety of indoor sports, a bowling alley, tennis courts, a combat sports ring, and a mirror-clad dance class, all offering views of the sports park. The arena’s over 1800 m2 Areenasali court is available for professional league basketball, volleyball, floorball, and indoor football. By lowering partitioning walls into place, the court can be divided into six sections for simultaneous use during children’s physical education classes, for example. The exercise spaces are grouped around a central, high-ceilinged lobby bathed in the soft, diffused natural light from the upper windows that reflects off the pale wall surfaces. Thanks to its glass walls, patrons of the entryway café can watch their favourite athletes in the bowling alley and on the Areenasali court. Entry to the exercise facilities is via corridors leading through the changing rooms. This clearly separates where visitors use indoor and outdoor shoes, improving the overall cleanliness and lifetime of the surfaces. The retractable bleachers in the Areenasali mezzanine are designed for a total of 470 spectators. There are more than 600 seats when the courtside folding bleachers are included. When the bleachers are retracted, the mezzanine provides three straight running tracks.

Technical solutions

NQE Rakennetekniikka Oy oversaw the main structural design and designed the prefabricated concrete and steel components. The building’s vertical frame consists chiefly of glulam pillars and CLT element walls, and large glulam beams support the roof. The largest fish-bellied beams are about 2.5 m high, formed by screwing two 215 mm wide beams together. The beams have total spans of about 34 m in the gym and about 17 m over the tennis court. Steel plates were added to improve support pressure resistance, and support pressure rods were glued inside the beams. Tension rods and stabilising/stiffening grids made from glulam rods add further bracing between the main glulam beams.

Wooden roof elements with 3 or 4 openings form most of the roof structure, and firestop strips added to the eaves prevent fires spreading from the façade to the roof structure’s hollows.

Mast pillars were mostly used to brace the building, but CLT elements and tension rods also served this purpose. The CLT elements of the exterior walls have a bracing effect but are mostly non-load-bearing. Mineral wool was installed on the outside to improve the thermal insulation of the CLT elements.

The construction project

Kemi Areena was a turnkey contract with Rave Rakennus Oy serving as the main contractor.

The early drafts at the beginning of 2022 were a rewarding collaboration between the designers and the main contractor. Once the turnkey tendering process was complete, the project applied for a construction permit in autumn 2022.

Actual construction began in March. The building’s glulam frame is from Versowood Oy and the CLT boards of the exterior walls are from CrossLam Kuhmo Oy. Rave Rakennus Oy installed the glulam
frame and CLT boards, and LapWall Oy delivered and installed the roof elements.

The building frame was completed in mid-July 2023 and followed by the outside insulation and cladding work. All work inside the building was conducted in autumn 2023 and spring 2024. This included the partition walls, floors, surface structures, technology installation, furnishings, equipment installations, and finishings.

The building was completed on schedule at the end of June 2024, with the landscaping finished at the end of July. Kemi Areena was opened to the public in August 2024.

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