Yyteri Visitor Centre

Located in Pori’s Yyteri tourism and recreational district, the Yyteri Visitor Centre provides a variety of services. The building follows MUUAN Oy’s concept plan from 2021 and successfully bring its ambitious goals to life.

Read the article in Finnish here.

The first of a planned trio of service buildings

Planned as a harmonious and easily recognisable complex atop the principal dune of Yyteri, the three wooden buildings will welcome visitors to the arrivals area and its vicinity. The building architecture draws inspiration from its natural surroundings with roofs that meander like the nearby dunes and merge into the landscape, particularly on the main dune’s seaside.

The visitor centre greets customers and supports the maintenance needs of this popular beach area. The building also serves as a point of departure for hikers and has a tourist information point, exhibitions, and a shop.

A gateway for hikers and adventurers

The concept plan for the Yyteri Visitor Centre defines it as a new solid wood arrivals building located on the shores of Yyteri. The centre serves as a gateway for the popular sandy beach, welcoming a full range of visitors from nature lovers to family adventurers. The building is an eye-catching architectural landmark thanks to its dune-like roof and robust wooden pillars. This hub not only provides a clear entryway to a variety of beach activities.

It also serves as a base for maintenance personnel and pop-up operators and as a tourism information centre, allowing providers to market their services in Yyteri’s most central location.

A successful project for Finnish wood

The concept plan specified a wooden structure and carbon-neutral materials. Accordingly, the building frame is solid wood CLT and has mostly been left visible indoors. The walls are waxed spruce. Finnish wood, such as pine and birch, was favoured for cladding and fixtures. A3 Arkkitehdit devised the construction plan, using an IFC composite model derived from the various design disciplines involved. The construction site also used information modelling, which facilitated the successful completion of this complex building.

Synergies from a new era building

Launching a new era for tourism in Yyteri, the visitor centre allows local service providers to collaborate more closely. However, it is only the first of three buildings designed for the main arrivals square in Yyteri.

Named Piletti, Prikka, and Praasu, they each have an individual look and purpose and offer visitors a variety of services. The loop around Yyteri Square, interspersed with signs describing the history, landscape, birds and vegetation of the region, stitches the buildings together.

Technical solutions

Fire safety solutions are relatively simple thanks to the small volume and single-storey nature of the public spaces. The building has four fire compartments separated by wooden and panel structures: public areas, toilets, social areas, and building technology. Smoke extraction is gravity-driven to the upper windows, which can be opened.

Construction

Yyteri is the flagship tourism project for the city of Pori, drawing investment since 2018. The general plan aimed to make Yyteri more attractive and recognisable, to improve its general appearance and practical usefulness, and to generate new services for visitors and new business opportunities in the main arrivals area.

Municipal zoning and strategic development plans set the design’s baseline, but Yyteri’s unique natural surroundings were the most significant inspiration and source of ideas with the distinct goal of leveraging the milieu sustainably and providing an improved service experience.

Once the general concept plan was complete, MUUAN prepared a detailed one for the first building, Piletti, as part of its project planning.