Project Details

General Information

Alusta Pavilion first located in Helsinki city center from 2022 until 2024 and relocated to the Aalto University campus, is a venue for multispecies co-living in an urban setting. The porous clay structures, decaying wood blocks, and pollinatorfriendly flowering perennials offer shelter and nutrition for insects and birds. Fungi and biochar care for the soil and its 3 of 11microbial life which in turn supports plant and animal life, including humans. All this simultaneously promotes human wellbeing and forms a safe and inviting space for all to enjoy.

Alusta is simultaneously a practical environmental act and its poetic representation. It is a venue for learning, and environmental discourse, both through the multisensory material experience, and the activities taking place there. The changing aesthetics, flowers and butterflies bring people joy. Its building solutions exemplify sustainability and circularity throughout their lifecycle and beyond. Participation, expert discussions and educational program deepen the message.

Alusta was loved by human visitors from children to academics requesting the extension of its life. It was populated by various insect species observed by a pollinator researcher. It affected the microbial life on site enhancing human wellbeing documented by ecology researchers. Its circular solutions were proven successful in the relocation process.

Creative Solution (Creativity/Innovation)

Alusta tackles the environmental crisis both on the level of reason and emotion. It is both an environmental act and its symbolic representation. It offers an example of holistic sustainability that increases biodiversity in an urban setting, explores sustainable material solutions and communicates environmentally friendly values and attitudes while creating approachable and enjoyable spatial experiences. On a practical level it is made of materials with low environmental impact, using little fossil energy. On a cultural level Alusta reminds its human visitors that human wellbeing and survival is tied to the wellbeing of the rest of nature.

Social Impact (Inspiration/Impact)

Alusta is a public space accessible for all, open and free offering a respite from urban commercial spaces, sensory enjoyment and a calm atmosphere. Bringing non-human nature into the city promotes equality as not everyone is physically able or can afford to travel to the wilderness to enjoy the wellbeing effects of non-human nature to human health.

Affordable simple techniques offer empowerment and enable replicating them regardless of economic or societal background. Making and mending together became a way of establishing community and means of alternative value creation not tied to monetary value combatting the idea of buildings as commercial commodities.

Participation/Cooperation

The process of making Alusta was based on multidisciplinary collaboration and educational possibilities. Co-creative process took place with experts and students of several disciplines. Ecology researchers of Helsinki University and a gardener acted as main advisors. The themes of the pavilion were explored through academic discussions open for all audiences.

Vision for the Future

Climate crises and mass extinction are global challenges which are experienced in specific localities, through the livability of those places. Alusta pavilion is a spatial inquiry into possible solutions to the loss of biodiversity in this particular setting. We are welcomed to tune ourselves to the needs of the non-human others, and to find ourselves entangled in this multi-species web of care. We then carry this attitude with us to other localities, with different challenges to be solved in their own contextual ways.