We are hosting a DIY furniture workshop for young people in Malmi on Saturday 26.9.2026 13-17:00. Read more about the project
In need of architectural services? We can help you with the following:
1. HERITAGE ↗
2. PARTICIPATION ↗
3. STORYTELLING ↗
| We are surrounded by the ordinary. Unlike older buildings shaped by craft traditions and layered histories of use, much of today’s built environment is defined by repetition and banality. To us, everything that is built should be considered heritage. Our work within the framework of the existing built environment includes: |
Architecture is often seen as the creation of the architect alone. However, architecture is a collaborative endeavour, drawing on diverse labour – from design contributions by architects and engineers to the efforts of construction workers, maintenance staff, cleaners, and restoration architects, all of whom play vital roles in the creation and upkeep of the built environment.
The exhibition traces the story of the Pavilion of Finland, designed by architect Alvar Aalto and his office, from its construction in 1956, through three major restorations and decades of continuous maintenance, to today. It delves into the labour required to ensure the longevity of architecture and positions the people involved in this work as co-creators alongside the original architect.
Through immersive multi-channel video projections and sound art, the exhibition brings to life the memories embedded within the pavilion’s walls. Through these stories, the exhibition invites visitors to see the space from new perspectives and uncovers aspects that are typically hidden.
Preserving built heritage depends on stewardship – a shared duty between architects and non-architects, requiring the negotiation of land, resources, and the built environment and considering the needs of humans and non-humans alike. The Pavilion – Architecture of Stewardship aspires to make the invisible visible.
The exhibition is comissioned & produced by Archinfo Finland
Curated by Ella Kaira & Matti Jänkälä
Video art by Merle Karp
Sound design by Jussi Hertz
Exhibition architecture by Antti Auvinen
Graphic design by Samuli Saarinen
THE PAVILION OF FINLAND IN PRESS
YLE Kulttuuriykkönen
Dezeen
The Guardian
NSS Magazine
Architecture Today
Stirworld
Designboom
Wallpaper
Archdaily
Rondine
World Architecture
The exhibition is accompanied by an independent publication Architecture of Stewardship. By recounting the Pavilion’s history, this book illustrates that buildings are not static objects but dynamic processes influenced by human actions, global politics and non-human forces. The collection of essays offers perspectives on stewardship from Finnish and Italian contributors in academia, practice, and activism, and explores how people have stewarded land, resources, and communities throughout the Pavilion’s history and its Venetian context.
Editors and Authors
Ella Kaira & Matti Jänkälä
Contributors
Stefano Ferro, Lodovica Guarnieri, Jonas Malmberg, Ila Narjus, Essi Nisonen, Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Veronica Pecile, Sofie Pelsmakers, Margherita Scapin, Carolyn Smith, Gianni Talamini, Federica Toninello
Graphic Design
Samuli Saarinen
Published by
Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing in collaboration with Archinfo – Information Centre for Finnish Architecture
ISBN 978-91-89270-97-8
Our audiovisual installation The Pavilion – Architecture of Stewardship has travelled to Korea! The installation is exhibited as part of Caring by Design, a special exhibition at Culture Station Seoul 284, from Thursday, September 17 to Sunday, November 1.
The exhibition is curated by Chung Dahyoung of CAC (Curating Architecture Collective), who served as artistic director of the Korean Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Architecture Biennale
2025.
Caring by Design is an exhibition that looks at public design not only as “the making of what is new” but also as “the practice of sustaining and caring” for what already exists. It regards the city, the building, and the interior as living environments that are constantly managed and constantly changing, and it illuminates the value of the labor embedded in the repair, mending, inspection, and maintenance that allow public space to endure. The exhibition attends less to the outcome of design than to its process, less to form than to time, less to planning than to operation. Through the relationships that people, objects, time, and space form with one another, it seeks to broaden the meaning and scope of public design.
Twenty artists and designers (teams) from Korea and abroad — among them KIM Taedong, Bae Yoon-ho, Vokal, SoA, a root, a.co.lab, Jung Youngsun, Mid-Size City Forum, and CHOI Jeonghwa — present 33 works spanning photography, sculpture, installation, video, and models.
MERIRASTI MULTIFUNCTIONAL BUILDING COMPETITION
In the spring of 2024, we collaborated with landscape architect Kaisla Rahkola on an architectural competition for a new multipurpose building in East Helsinki’s Meri-Rastila neighbourhood. The project aimed to integrate a school, daycare centre, and youth centre while balancing new construction with the thoughtful reuse of existing structures.
With support from FEMMA Planning, we held workshops with residents and school personnel to assess the strengths and challenges of the current buildings. These sessions helped envision how the new complex could best serve its users.
Our proposal focused on preserving the site’s existing buildings, connecting them with extensions while demolishing only the janitor’s house for new functions.
The yard design honored natural features, preserving trees, the forest floor, and open rock areas while repurposing playground equipment. Rooftop play spaces, a public path from Fokkatori to Haruspuisto, and a rooftop garden enhanced community access.
LA BOCA DEL ESPOLÓN
La Boca del Espolón is an audio installation proposal for the Concéntrico Festival 2026. It gathers the voices and sounds that shape Logroño today: spoken stories, ambient sounds, and the presence of more-than-human life.
During the festival, the recordings are played through a wooden structure shaped like an oversized horn, functioning as an analogue loudspeaker. Visitors are invited to approach, sit, rest, and listen—encountering the city through sound.
The installation enters into dialogue with one of the Paseo del Espolón’s most recognisable landmarks: the Concha del Espolón. Designed by Jaime Carceller and inaugurated in 1954, this shell-shaped auditorium — modelled on a similar structure in San Francisco — has hosted generations of concerts, from military bands to popular music, integrating sound in the civic life of Logroño. Conceived as a contemporary counterpart, La Boca del Espolón mirrors its acoustic role while shifting the focus from performance to attentive listening.
Central to understanding architecture is understanding heat. Our built environment functions as an external system that regulates temperature to keep conditions suitable for human life. While life on Earth ultimately relies on energy from the sun, human societies draw on various forms of energy to sustain activity and comfort.
Alongside everyday practices like clothing and diet, architecture helps maintain the crucial 37°C of homeostasis, the stable internal temperature that keeps enzymes operating within their narrow range of about 35.5°C to 37.6°C. When ambient temperatures drop below the thermal comfort zone of roughly 21°C to 28°C, the body initiates thermogenesis: blood vessels constrict, shivering begins, and heat is generated. When temperatures rise above this zone, thermolysis cools the body as vessels dilate and sweat forms.
Most contemporary buildings, particularly in many European countries and often constructed during the era of abundant fossil energy and poor insulation, face the challenge of maintaining indoor temperatures within the human thermal comfort zone. Understanding how heat moves through buildings is therefore essential for ensuring the future usability and efficiency of structures.
Thermal Knowledge is a video installation exhibited at the Beta Biennale 2026. During our onsite office-in-residence period we will study the heating and insulation of the former Technical College ‘Ion Mincu’ architecture high school in Timișoara Romania using thermal imaging. We will conduct thermal scans of the buildings exterior and interior to identify the potential cold bridges and leakage in thermal insulation. The thermal scans will be exhibited as 1:1 projections on the building’s walls.
Our participatory practices include:
In Helsinki’s Kalasatama neighbourhood part of the construction costs is spent on art. The City of Helsinki selected our project together with three other proposals as part of this year’s artistic programme.
Heat Trace is a project combining light and community art, where we create artworks in Kalasatama together with local youth. We explore the environment of the former Hanasaari coal-fired power plant using thermal imaging. The thermal images will be used to create light artworks, which will be projected onto the facade of the old power plant building.
We are looking for young people aged 15–20 living in Helsinki to participate in the art workshops. The workshops are free of charge and do not require any prior information or expertise. The workshops will be organised in Finnish.
The project is funded by the City of Helsinki.
We are developing an alternative urban plan for the Mellunmäki neighbourhood together with the local resident movement.
The city has named Mellunmäki as an urban renewal area. The renewal is planned to build apartments for 2000-5500 new residents in the neighbourhood. However, new construction is planned in the place of local forests and the current waterway of Mellunkylänpuro.
The resident movement Mellunmäki-liike is going to develop its own alternative for the urban plan of the neighbourhood. The alternative urban plan will be drafted in collaboration with architectural practice Vokal. Local residents, organisations, and environmental NGOs are invited to join to support the alternative plan. The project is funded by Maj & Tor Nessling Foundation.
If you would like to join the future planning workshops or follow the development of the alternative urban plan, you can give us your contact details via this form
You can read more about the project via this link
The Mellunmäki alternative urban plan has been developed together with the local residents in six co-design workshops throughout 2026. As part of the design process we have utilised an urban planning game where the residents themselves are able to plan infill construction using wooden blocks.
Cité internationale des arts
We worked at the Cité Internationale des arts residency in Paris in the autumn of 2025.
The project studied the lived experience in the Parisian grands ensembles: postwar housing complexes built primarily during Les Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) as symbols of progress and housing for all, later burdened by neglect and stigma.
Because these neighbourhoods occupy a sensitive place in public discourse, we adopted drawing as our primary method. Many residents prefer not to be photographed, while drawing offers a slow, public, and conversational approach that invites curiosity and exchange. Rather than fleeting images, it demands time and presence, treating these postwar complexes as monuments in their own right.
From September to December 2025, we visited over twenty grands ensembles around the Paris metropolitan area. Seeking sustained engagement with a single site, we chose Sarcelles, a northern suburb thirty minutes from central Paris on the regional train RER D. Built between 1954 and 1976, Sarcelles is one of France’s most emblematic grands ensembles.
The project culminated in a series of drawing workshops with local residents — immigrant women and young men — who were invited to share and express their own stories through drawing. The project was conducted in collaboration with local organisations Accueil & Culture and Compagnons Bâtisseurs. The workshops were made together with Iranian dramaturg Elaheh Nouri. The work was exhibited at the Cité Internationale des arts in December 2025. The project was funded by the Finnish Culture Fund and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
The project studied the lived experience in the Parisian grands ensembles: postwar housing complexes built primarily during Les Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) as symbols of progress and housing for all, later burdened by neglect and stigma.
Because these neighbourhoods occupy a sensitive place in public discourse, we adopted drawing as our primary method. Many residents prefer not to be photographed, while drawing offers a slow, public, and conversational approach that invites curiosity and exchange. Rather than fleeting images, it demands time and presence, treating these postwar complexes as monuments in their own right.
From September to December 2025, we visited over twenty grands ensembles around the Paris metropolitan area. Seeking sustained engagement with a single site, we chose Sarcelles, a northern suburb thirty minutes from central Paris on the regional train RER D. Built between 1954 and 1976, Sarcelles is one of France’s most emblematic grands ensembles.
The project culminated in a series of drawing workshops with local residents — immigrant women and young men — who were invited to share and express their own stories through drawing. The project was conducted in collaboration with local organisations Accueil & Culture and Compagnons Bâtisseurs. The workshops were made together with Iranian dramaturg Elaheh Nouri. The work was exhibited at the Cité Internationale des arts in December 2025. The project was funded by the Finnish Culture Fund and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
According to cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas, “Dirt is matter out of place” (Purity and Danger, 1966). From the perspective of design, waste can simply be raw material in the wrong position or arrangement. We will explore this tension–and the concept of value–in the DIY chair workshop.
The project draws inspiration from photographer Michael Wolf’s Bastard Chairs series. Wolf studied the “vernacular craftsmanship” of Chinese metropolises, observing how city residents constructed functional seats for themselves by combining broken chair parts with waste materials such as bricks, scraps of wood, and crates.
The furniture created during the workshop will be showcased in an exhibition at the Malmin Nova shopping center from September 26 to October 16, 2026. The project is funded by the City of Helsinki. You can read more information about the workshop here
First piloted during the FCINY residency in New York, the Climate Game is an ongoing participatory method used to gather and share insights into community resilience in cities facing the impacts of climate change.
The residency culminated in a workshop where we presented findings from our exploration of community-based climate adaptation practices in New York City. Participants were invited to imagine ways of reshaping their own surroundings, drawing inspiration from community-led initiatives such as local organisations, community gardens, and places like Cooper Square, home to New York’s first community land trust.
In addition to participation work, we are involved in formal education. We have taught courses at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Estonian Academy of Arts, and worked as visiting lecturers and reviewers at the Architectural Association (AA), ENSA Paris Est, Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and Penn State University.
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
During autumn 2026, we will be teaching on Aalto University’s Urban Planning Studio course, led by Professor Gianni Talamini. The course will focus on Espoo and engage with the citywide Espoo Master Plan 2060, which the municipality is currently preparing.
Taking a catchment-based approach to planning, teams work at tributary scales to integrate ecology and culture, achieving spatial justice in the process. Students will develop interventions that build on existing ecological and cultural structures.
The course enables students to develop alternative visions for a fairer Espoo, both socially and environmentally. The aim is to meet or challenge existing governmental goals by presenting context-sensitive arguments for sustainability.
AALTO ARTS SUMMER SCHOOL 2025
Spatial Practices Beyond New Construction
In 2025 we worked as part of the teaching staff of the Aalto ARTS Summer School lead by Hella Hernberg and professor Panu Savolainen. Our proposal Spatial Practices Beyond New Construction—initiated by Hella Hernberg—was selected as the theme of the course through an open call directed at all departments of the School of ARTS.
During the course the students occupied a vacant building on campus Maarintalo and envisioned new approaches to the site beyond new construction or demolition. The course culminated in a site specific exhibition at Maarintalo.
The international summer school hosted students and teaching staff from Aalto ARTS (FI), Politecnico di Milano (IT), Technológico de Monterrey (MX), National Institute of Design (IN), Singapore University of Technology and Design, SUTD (SG), University of Technology Delft (NL), The New School, Parsons School of Design (NY, US), and Central St. Martins UAL (UK).
As part of our storytelling practice we:
Our working group consisting of architects Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä from Vokal and visual artist Paula Veidenbauma will be conducting a project titled Ferry Spotting at the Archipelago Artist Residency in Korpo (AARK).
The project studies ferries as public spaces where infrastructure, cultural history, and social systems intertwine. In the archipelago, the ferry is part of the landscape. Its motions define the life of communities living on islands off the Finnish mainland. In summers it opens the archipelago to tourists, increasing the pressure on this fragile environment.
Through mapping, archival research and interviews with residents, ferry crews and commuters, ferries become platforms for listening and reflection. The residency’s starting point unfolds as a study of rumors connected to the public ferry routes of the Turku archipelago seascape. During our residency, we will dive into the mythologies and practices of seafaring and navigation, and reflect on how these manifest in sound, light, and choreographies of wayfinding. Suspended between land and water, the ferries offer a space to ask: what does it mean to navigate the Baltic Sea today?
The project is supported by Nordic Culture Point and Svenska Kulturfonden.
What role do local communities play in urban development amid market-driven forces? How can communities act as active agents in response to climate-driven extreme weather events? These are some of the questions explored in Grassroots City, a two-year research and art project focused on the role of local communities in socially and ecologically sustainable urban development.
As climate change forces cities to adapt to rising sea levels and extreme weather, it is essential for city dwellers to be central in shaping climate-resilient urban spaces. The project aims to spark discussion on the resources and resilience of local communities in a changing world, examining the history, present, and future of community-based urban development. It also addresses the challenges and opportunities created by today’s urban dynamics, including the financialisation and entrepreneurialisation of real estate markets. The project is funded by the Arts Promotion Center.
You can study the results of the project (in Finnish) via this link↗
As climate change forces cities to adapt to rising sea levels and extreme weather, it is essential for city dwellers to be central in shaping climate-resilient urban spaces. The project aims to spark discussion on the resources and resilience of local communities in a changing world, examining the history, present, and future of community-based urban development. It also addresses the challenges and opportunities created by today’s urban dynamics, including the financialisation and entrepreneurialisation of real estate markets. The project is funded by the Arts Promotion Center.
You can study the results of the project (in Finnish) via this link↗
Cité internationale des arts
The Grand [Ensemble] Tour is an art and research project developed during a residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in the autumn of 2025.
Reimagining the traditional Grand Tour — once a journey to the ruins of antiquity — the project turns its attention to the Parisian grands ensembles: postwar housing complexes built primarily during Les Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) as symbols of progress and housing for all, later burdened by neglect and stigma.
Because these neighbourhoods occupy a sensitive place in public discourse, we adopted drawing as our primary method. Many residents prefer not to be photographed, and drawing—slow, public, and conversational—invites curiosity and exchange. Rather than fleeting images, it demands time and presence, treating these postwar complexes as monuments in their own right.
The project was funded by the Finnish Culture Fund and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and was done in collaboration with local organizations Accueil & Culture and Compagnons Bâtisseurs. Its culmination was a series of drawing workshops in Sarcelles, organised with dramaturg Elaheh Nouri. The work was exhibited at Cité internationale des arts in December 2025
Built between 1954 and 1976, Sarcelles is one of France’s most emblematic grands ensembles. By the early 1960s, however, Sarcelles had given its name to sarcellite, signifying the malaise of living in the large housing estates, becoming a media anti-model and a shorthand for the failures of large housing estates.
Today, Sarcelles — like many postwar districts — is undergoing large-scale renewal. Framed as social and environmental improvement, these processes often prioritise demolition over repair, with social housing disappearing faster than it is replaced.
Yet Sarcelles has always been more complex than its reputation allows. It remains a deeply diverse neighbourhood, where many families have lived for generations and dozens of languages and cultures coexist. Neighbours meet regularly, most visibly in the market that takes over the area several times a week. Against decades of stigma, Sarcelles’ identity continues to be shaped through everyday life, shared space, and collective presence. The drawing workshops sought to find and give form to these lived values of the neighbourhood.
You can study the documentation of the project in English via this link
↗ and in Finnish via
this link↗
Geography of Memories is an art and research project where together with local residents we gathered memories and the intangible values embedded in the neighborhood of Meri-Rastila. As the area undergoes significant changes due to urban renewal, major buildings—from schools to the local mall—are being demolished to make way for new constructions.
Through our approach, we aimed to inspire a new way of observing the built environment—not just through abstract maps and planners’ drawings, but through the personal significance places and spaces hold in people’s lives. The project invited us to engage with the history of map-making and reflect on the power that the lines drawn by architects carry. Even if the demolition driven by urban renewal cannot be halted, we can preserve the memories embedded in the built environment and the silent knowledge held by the area’s residents.
The results of the Geography of Memories project were exhibited at the cultural space Merirasti in August 2025. The site-specific exhibition drew on the form of the former chapel hall. On the wall, in the place traditionally occupied by the altarpiece, hung a memory map compiling residents’ recollections of Meri-Rastila, highlighting both past and present places of significance, including those that local people have fought to preserve.
The altar table was covered with fourteen stacks of A4 paper. The A4 format referenced the systems of standardisation that shape everyday life and seek to regulate human experience. These stacks symbolised the many surveys conducted about Meri-Rastila and formed the project’s final publication: a deconstructed book that reimagined what surveys of neighbourhood social life might look like.
The project is funded by the Alfred Kordelin Foundation and the City of Helsinki.
The findings of the Geography of Memories project are collected in a print publication. The book features an interview with the original planner of Meri-Rastila Vesa Jakkula, as well as texts comissioned from the resident movement Pro Meri-Rastila and Moona Tikka founder of Studio Field.
The book is in Finnish and English translations of some of the texts are available on our Substack.
The book is available in our online shop.
11/1/2026 The Grand [Ensemble] Tour
10/6/2025 The Wooden Shack Among World Powers
2/5/2025 Practicing Attentiveness
29/3/2025 Community Matters
21/2/2025 Fixer’s Folklore
Meri-Rastila
18/07/2025 Idea of Rastila by the Sea
07/10/2025 Pro Meri-Rastila’s Advocacy Work (Article by residents’ movement Pro Meri-Rastila)
29/9/2025 From Collecting Opinions to Increasing Understanding (Article by Moona Tikka)
8/4/2024 Simple Suffices
27/10/2023 Hidden Sanctuaries
19/10/2023 Cultural Space Merirasti
12/6/2023 Temporary Buildings on Rental Lots
25/10/2022 Beyond Repair?
25/10/2022 An Endangered Landmark
24/9/2023 Yearning for Roots
5/9/1989 History of a Neighborhood
18/8/2023 It's all so Secretive
New York
04/02/2023 Managed Retreat
02/08/1962 Preservation Beyond Landmarks
04/02/2023 Real Estate on Shaky Ground
15/11/2023 Billion Dollar Flooding
14/11/2023 It’s All About Real Estate
13/02/1970 Community Control Over Land
27/11/2023 Reimagining Infrastructure
16/11/2023 Organizing for Environmental Justice
25/11/2023 Urban Homesteading Movement
9/11/2023 Striving for Collective Resiliency
7/11/2023 Guerrilla Gardening
4/11/2023 Stories of a Different Time
15/06/2026 Not Just Trout
27/05/2026 The Stewards of the Stream
17/05/2026 On Resisting Authority
08/04/2026 Dead Waters
26/03/2026 Currents of Melancholy
11/03/2026 Guerrilla Tactics
18/2/2026 The Red Locomotive Remembers
4/2/2026 Enduring Urban Renewal
23/01/2026 Grassroots City
2/7/2025 When Biden Came to Town, even the Concrete Barriers were Repainted (Interview with Helsinki Municipal Construction Services Enterprise Stara)
5/2026 Vokal
Muistojen Meri-Rastila
5/2025 Archinfo & Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing
Architecture of Stewardship
8/2024 Archinfo
Savouring slowness
5/2023 Finnish Architectural Review
Halting New Construction – Interview with Charlotte Malterre-Barthes
5/2023 Finnish Architectural Review
Revisit: Vuoranta Training Centre
2/2023 Finnish Architectural Review
The Local Community Heals
1/2023 Finnish Architectural Review
Social Movements, Saviors of Built Heritage?
11/2025 Finnish Architectural Review
The New Wave
6/2025 Archinfo
Finnish Architects in the Spotlight: Vokal
2/2025 Archinfo
Pavilion of Finland’s exhibition explores architecture as a collaborative endeavour through the iconic Aalto-designed Pavilion
3/2024 Archinfo
Young Finnish architects Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä to curate the Pavilion of Finland at the 2025 Biennale Architettura
3/2024 Withstanding Podcast
On Community Activism
1/2024 Archinfo
Residency work opens up new perspectives and opportunities to build international networks
12/2023 Finnish Cultural Institute in New York
Interview: Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä on the soft side of architecture
vokal(@)vokal.fi
company ID: 3600639-1
Ella Kaira
Architect (MSc) SAFA
ella.kaira(@)vokal.fi
Matti Jänkälä
Architect (MSc) SAFA
matti.jankala(@)vokal.fi
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