To commemorate Espoo's 550th anniversary, an international architecture competition is being held for the renovation of City Hall and an adjoining office complex. The competition starts in December and lasts until the end of March 2008. The languages of the competition are Finnish and English. The competition area is City Hall and its environs, but the entire adjoining office complex and its border areas will be studied. The results of the competition will be published in the summer of 2008.

Espoo City Hall is urgently in need of a total renovation. The need for repairs is so great that it would be worthwhile to study various alternatives for the renovation of City Hall in relation to the entire office complex. The department of industry and employment of the City Board decided in March of this year that the development of the entire office complex would be studied through an international competition.

The aim of the competition is to make the city's administrative centre a human-oriented and pleasant place to work in and do business. The starting points of the design are the needs of citizens and dialogue between the people of Espoo, civil servants and political decision-makers. The merging of functions and parallel use of premises are also being studied.

The intention is to develop and renovate the block at the heart of the city so that it offers Espoo residents versatile public and commercial services. Instead of erecting an administrative monument, the intention is to find easy-to-approach, unobstructed, open and well-lit urban spaces with high-quality architecture. The construction of residential units in the city centre block is also considered to be important.

The aim of the competition is to find a high-quality, generally acceptable plan that can be developed and implemented and which provides a solution for the City Hall site that is to be renovated. The competition is also intended to find a long-term solution for the renovation of office building 1 and in part for the renovation of office building 2. A vision of objectives for 2015 will be created for the blocks in the office complex to be renovated as well as a long-term vision for 2030.

Based on the results of the competition, a decision is planned to be made at the anniversary meeting of the City Council in August 2008 on the location of City Hall and the other developments of the office complex.
The plan is that construction could start in 2010 or 2011, so that City Hall would be completed in 2012 or 2013.

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For addition information, please contact:
Olavi Louko
Director of the Technical Department
tel. +358 (0) 500 607 754
Torsti Hokkanen
Director of Espoo Centre Project
tel. +358 (0) 50 413 2163
Kimmo Kuisma
Regional Architect
tel. +358 (0) 46 877 2123

english.espoo.fi/