House N+N gets international interest once again as it is being published in Diario Design online magazine. Diario Design is the first spanish language magazine that publishes stories about architecture and design on a daily basis. Read the publication here. 

Archeus has designed the new interior of the Radisson Blu Plaza hotel lobby and its meeting place HUB. Plaza hotel’s HUB is a new urban meeting place in the city centre of Helsinki. In HUB one can enjoy, work and dine around the clock. Champagne is flowing in Veuve Lounge and pop-up stores offer, for example, design by Mirkka Metsola, who also is responsible for designing the working clothes of the HUB staff. The Plaza hotel is located on the crossroads of Mikonkatu and Vilhonkatu. The hotel will get a new heart of its own, as HUB, a combination of a lobby café, bar and lounge opens. HUB and conference rooms are the first phase of the total renewal of Plaza.

"We believe that HUB will be a cozy living room for our hotel guests and why not for everyone in Helsinki. HUB is an easy gathering point before heading to theatre, shopping spree or the casino next door", says Inari Lehtinen, the General Manager of Plaza. 

The project reflects the duality of the ensemble’s architecture: the contrast between the old part from the 1920’s with its woodcarvings, marble floors and roof decorations, and the part designed at the beginning of the millennium with its plainness, steel, glass and white surfaces. In HUB the use of marble connects the modern space with the vintage atmosphere.

See more pictures of the whole Plaza project here. 

Pave Mikkonen was one of two keynote speakers at Lybecker crafts and design school’s anniversary seminar. The other speaker was designer Mikko Paakkanen.  Mikkonen talked about how interior design and architecture should be thought as a whole. Mikkonen presented projects by Archeus where the interior design supports the architecture and vice versa.

Archeus is involved in the design of transforming the old SOK mill and silos into loft apartments. The project is especially interesting because it is difficult to find old industrial milieus suitable for loft apartments.

The urban plan for the area was finished in 2010. In the next few years the old Toppila harbour area will be transformed into a new 5000 resident neighbourhood with its own services. A new bridge over Toppilansalmi will shorten the distance to the Oulu city centre to only a couple of kilometres.

The demolition work on site has already begun and new apartments are expected to finish already during next year. Parts of the silos not suitable for living are torn down to give better views from the saved parts of the building. New apartments in the high silos will enjoy a clear view to the sea over Nallikari.

 The building is listed and extra attention has been paid to the design of the new openings. It is very important that the building will maintain its original character also after the changes.

Check out more sketches on Archeus website and read an article about the project on published by Yle.

The Modern Sauna by Allan Konya features saunas by Archeus.  Check out our private house projects to see more Archeus saunas.

The Modern Sauna is an 'everything you need to know' type of book about the origin, history and design of saunas and especially Finnish sauna. The Modern Sauna is an altered and extended version of The International Handbook of Finnish Sauna published in 1973 by Allan Konya and Alewyn Burger.

Future Learning Finland is a national education export programme, exporting Finnish top-quality educational know-how and learning solutions globally. By finding and getting the top players in the industry involved, the program aims to match them with the best partners to export the best solutions.

Archeus has been involved in Future Learning Finland –projects. Archeus visited Portugal and presented school projects to the local education authorities. Archeus has also hosted guests from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan was interested in the Finnish innovations in education.

In the field of education Archeus is developing Future School of Finland – today brand, services and products. Focus in this work is to re-define needs and clarification for the future learning environment by doing planning, furnishing and technology development work in the completely new and different way. This match better to the 21^st century learning and the world the kids of us are living. This work is done together with Finpeda a Finnish education export company and also member of a Future Learning Finland (FLF)