In northern Finland, an interesting Giantlog complex rises on the shore of Lake Miekojärvi. We got to interview Hannu Kankaanpää, the architect who designed the project, who has more than 20 years of solid experience in designing residential buildings.
The entity includes a large boat shelter and a guest cabin, which are connected to each other by a common entrance. In addition to a lounge space, the guest house has a bedroom, toilet and shower. There is no kitchen, as it is intended only as guest accommodation. The boat shelter can store a large boat and several small machines, and has space for other storage. Even though the boat shelter is a warehouse building, visually it does not look like a warehouse, but fits as a natural part of other buildings in the same yard area.
In the same courtyard there is an over-100-year-old log house and several smaller buildings. The complex that is now under construction was designed to be fitting with the existing buildings. The client had a need for additional accommodation, but at the same time a boathouse suitable for versatile use was planned, and the new Giantlog complex was placed on the lake shore.
The new building is not too dominant. The role of the old main building is still preserved. That's why the new premises were divided into two separate buildings, which as a whole fits well with the rhythm of the other buildings in the courtyard.
The wonderful location on the shore of the lake has been taken into account in the placement and orientation of the building complex. Both the living areas of the guest house and the boat shelter have large windows that offer a view of the lake.
Giantlog was a natural choice as the building material
From the beginning, log was chosen as the material for the new building, so that it fits the nature of the place.
"Given the scale of the building, it is natural to use a large log. Visually, it's a completely different material than a regular 20-centimeter log. The building is more convincing when it has strong walls. The complex also includes wall structures that extend the walls outside the line of the warm mass, and in these the thicker log is visually more impressive and more balanced in relation to the mass of the building," Kankaanpää describes.
At the same time, the complex is more energy efficient, because the Giantlog is thermally a better solution than a smaller log.
"In my opinion, a large-sized log is similar to traditional construction, where large logs, obtained from the forest, have been used. The Giantlog has more kinship to old traditional log construction than most of today's log production. It brings its own atmosphere to the interior as well as the visual appearance," Kankaanpää says.
When designing the interior, Kankaanpää also takes into account the height of the Giantlog, matching the openings to the log distribution. We don't want to break the strong horizontality brought by the material but use the rise and dimension of the Giantlog, and try to bring the other elements in line with the log.
This spring, a new spectacular and interesting Giantlog complex will rise at the shore of Lake Miekojärvi, that meets the owner's requirements in a versatile way. The plan has also considered modifiability, taking into account the changing needs of the future. Soon, the logs will leave the Pellopuu factory for Lake Miekojärvi, and the construction crew will be able to assemble this wonderful entity. We look forward to seeing pictures of the finished boat shelter and guest house.
The images in the article are the modeling of the building plan by Hannu Kankaanpää, ArkRova.
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