Base Street Trio is a three-apartment row house situated in Tammisalo neighborhood of eastern Helsinki, Finland. Tammisalo is an old residential area with mostly single family homes and row houses built after 1950’s, but the history goes beyond that as the area was a part of 19th century mansion grounds. Being an island Tammisalo is surrounded by water and small forests. Nature is present everywhere as characteristic old and tall pine trees grow on many yards of many homes.
As the city grows and needs more space for it’s recidents, properties in the loosely built residential areas are being coped with denser land to building ratio which allowed building three apartments to a small lot instead of two. On the steep site, approach was for house to adapt to it’s surrounding nature. That gave the idea to layout the apartments each stepping back to make an illusion of smaller building mass. Apartments lay on a quiet street with a backyard facing north and street side to the south. The modest use of windows on the south facade gives a sense of privacy whereas the northern facade with large windows opens up to the garden.
Gable roofs, use of solid wood CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) as the frame material and cladding facades with larch was to make natural homes that values area’s rich tradition in wood building (see Finnish Tyyppitalo). CLT was used in addition of exterior walls on floor slabs, balcony and entry canopies. Bare frame elements are visible inside, since there was no need for extra insulation. All the openings were pre-cut at the CLT element factory which allowed easy and fast construction on site. Large windows embedded in the frame creates a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor space.
Situating in a slope the site needed a lot of earthmoving to create required parking spaces for three homes. Also by digging ground, first floor spaces were made above earth spaces which was in the requirements for habitable spaces.
The Trio utilizes geothermal heat as it’s heating source making it more ecological compared to many other heating sources.
