Two drains

Image: Nina Matthews / flickr cc

Have you noticed that in new and newly renovated apartments there are two drains in the bathroom floor? Do you know why? Because the national building standards say so. The standards contain such a requirement because Finnish people tend to pass out in the shower, usually on top of the drain. So the other one is a back up drain to prevent the shower from flooding into other rooms.

Fiskars Ruukki

Today I visited the Fiskars Ruukki for the first time. It's one of the attractions that has been on my to-visit-list for long time, but finally I managed to take the time and get there. The trigger for visiting Fiskars this week was the flower exhibition that my sister participated. She had two pieces on the show, this one being themed in a futuristic way for the Paper House of Fiskars - she had made the frame for the flowers from 800 paper circles! Unfortunately my camera run out of battery, so I didn't get a picture from the other piece. But I'm a very proud big sister.


Detail of the flower setup made by my sister


River being calm

The story about flower exhibition actually explained already what Fiskars Ruukki is all about today: art and handicraft surrounded with beautiful nature. Many artists have residence in the village, and there are shops selling handicrafts. Unlike in many tourist attractions, the food in Fiskars is good too. We had a delicious lunch at Restaurant Kuparipaja (Copper workshop) by the river, and coffee at Petris Chocolate Room. Petris Chocolate Room is something I can warmly recommend: beautiful handmade pralines with perfect chocolate and smart flavor combinations. My absolute favorite was the black currant praline. Petris's artisan chocolate is available in Helsinki too, the shop at Museokatu 11, Töölö is open on weekdays, and they'll have a chocolate bar at Helsinki Design Open event in couple of weeks.


Petris Chocolate Room

Delicious pralines: black currant, lime-coconut and pistachio

Fiskars Ruukki used to be an iron mill, it was founded in the 17th century by the river. All kinds of iron tools were made there - so that's the home of the orange Fiskars scissors too. The beautiful old industrial buildings have been nicely renovated and many of them serve nowadays as shops or exhibition rooms. One of my favorite details in the industrial buildings were the dark bricks in some of the houses: they were made of the blast furnace slag - recycling the industrial waste of the mill. The wooden houses were built for the workers of the mill, and some of them are still in residential use.


Black bricks


Residential buildings


Another residence. The lady of the house at the door (too bad there are no other bees in the pic to give the scale)

Nice experience. I recommend visiting Fiskars for anyone who's staying in Finland for a bit longer, and for the locals as well.


The trees in Fiskars were amazing

Smoke on the water

One of the finest invention in the Finnish building history is the chimney. It may not be a Finnish invention but sure has had huge effect on the residents of Finland: I remember reading somewhere that the amount of eye infections and blindness were dropped enormously after the chimney started to gain popularity in the houses and the smoke from the ovens was led outside the house. Despite the total extinction of savupirtti, smoke houses, there is one historical remaining still left from the pre-chimney-era: savusauna, smoke sauna - a sauna with stove but without chimney.

Warming up savusauna is a whole day operation, it takes hours. Why? Because you need to keep the door open during the heating process - of course most of the heat runs away from the door. Smoke on the water, that's what you get when you're warming up a savusauna by the lake. But you must not close the door to speed up the heating, or else you'll just end up burning the whole sauna down or killing yourself with carbon monoxide. Something like 4 to 5 hours is enough to warm up the pile of stones on the stove and also the walls and ceiling.



You need to wait until the flames have burnt out from the very last piece of fire wood - only then you can hop in. But it's all worth the effort and waiting: the heat in the savusauna is unbelievably smooth. The smell can be a bit intrusive first and it takes a while until your eyes get used to the darkness and the remaining smoke - but the löyly, heat is like velvet, you cannot achieve it in any other type of sauna. The heat is mild and firm at the same time. You can actually stay much longer in savusauna, compared to the normal sauna. Just relax and lean back.

After bathing in savusauna you'll clearly notice that you have relaxed. And that you've leant back.

Watch out and up

Some time ago a friend of mine was admiring the "romantic icicles of St. Petersburg". She was wondering and obviously disappointed by the fact that we don't have as massive icicles in Finland.

Forgive me for being a boring engineer, but there's nothing romantic in icicles, especially if it falls down and penetrates your skull. Secondly, environmentally conscious person (like this particular friend of mine) should not fantasize about icicles, since icicles are a sign of energy leaks in the building: heat is leaking through the structures due to bad insulation, and the snow on the roof is melting. Once the melted water reaches the cold edge of the eaves, it refreezes and grows into an icicle.

Construction micromanagement

I've tried to highlight the good sides of Espoo whenever possible. But now Espoo deserves few words of criticism.

A new hospital will be built in Jorvi. The construction project is worth 200 million euros. According to yesterday's Helsingin Sanomat (the paper version), Espoo city council were not convinced by the competence of the project lead. Therefore the council decided that a member of city council must be involved in leading the hospital construction project. In my opinion this is either a very stupid decision or the decision was really poorly written.

• Being a member of city council is more or less of a hobby. Folks are doing their city council duties in the evenings, besides their "real" work. 
• 200 M€ construction project is huge. To give some perspective, the construction of the largest leisure time activity center in the Nordic countries is worth 100 M€. Helsinki music hall was a project worth 150 M€. The planning and construction costs of Guggenheim museum in Helsinki have been estimated to 150 M€. Länsimetro is a project worth 700 M€.
• Leading a construction project worth 200 M€ is not a hobby. 

As a tax payer I'm disappointed to the arrogant decision. Leading a large scale project is challenging for any professional - why on earth would anyone (31 members of city council to be precise) think that appointing a random amateur into lead would be the solution? The one who orders and pays the project has his role in the construction project - but the role is not positioned in the lead of the project.

The election of the city council will be arranged next fall. You don't need to be Finnish citizen in order to vote, anyone having permanent residence in Espoo for long enough is entitled to vote. I urge you to ask from your candidate, what did he/she vote for on February 27th - and more importantly, why.

Under construction, under control

In general I'm concerned about the construction quality in Finland. I don't want to get too philosophic about the quality issues (at least not in this post), but I want to list some things that are in quite good shape in the Finnish construction practices:

• 3-layer windows. One additional layer of glass increases energy efficiency and soundproofing.
• Doors opening outwards. In case of fire it's easier to open the door outwards. Just lean onto door handle and you're in the fresh air.

• Taps with built-in mixer. You can adjust the suitable water temperature and pressure quickly with one hand only. UK, feel free to adopt this idea.
• Insulation. The warm air stays in, that's why houses in Finland are warmer than in Middle Europe. Again, energy efficiency.
• Lack of wall-to-wall carpeting. One bio hazard less to inhale.

(B)lock the doors and close the blinds

The great holiday sale is everywhere. I'm not usually a friend of sale nor shopping but in the past days I have probably spent saved by sale shopping more than I would have earned at the same time by working.

Nonetheless, one can consider shopping trips also as real estate field study. I've faced one questionable jewel of HVAC design in almost all the shopping centers I've visited in the past sale shopping days: blocked sliding doors.



Why do shopping centers block the sliding doors of their main entrance? No, it's not a maintenance break, it's because they don't want the chilly air to blow in. Then why on earth do most of the shopping centers in Finland have such a door system that allows the chilly wind to blow in? Tell me about it. Chilly weather simply cannot come as a surprise in a place like Helsinki!

In professional terms I'm a bit disappointed with Kamppi shopping center. Kamppi is rather modern shopping center, it did win several awards in the building and construction industry - and yet they couldn't come up with any smarter HVAC solution than blocking the sliding doors whenever the temperature drops below +3 C. New innovations needed here, please.