Luca Poiani’s museum in Oulu, Finland, folded into brick skin
reinventing Oulu’s industrial structure
With his latest competition proposal Luca Poia’s forms looking at the coastal city of Oulu, Finland. The proposed Oulu museum and science center is designed to rise as an iconic monolith among the city’s Myllytull, creating a new focal point for the former industrial urban environment. Overall, the project is designed with a simple and legible mass that appropriately responds to the scale and substance of its 19th-century neighbors.
Thus the building is wrapped in a facade from red brickwork, reinvents the familiar material as a billowing “city-level curtain.” The unique strategy aims to harmonize the building with its surroundings and at the same time bring a unique and modern icon of the city.
images © Filippo Bolognese pictures | @filippobolognese
Structural brick curtain of Luca boy’s shapes
The Oulu Museum & Science Center proposal by Luca Poian Forms is known for its textured brick curtain that gently folds and divides to reveal bright interiors and a spiral staircase. This “urban curtain” has become a recurring theme in much of the world architectwork, and it was proposed to both Tampere museums (see here) and a mosque in Preston, England (see here).
The bold volume is a contrast to the delicate but self-supporting brick curtain. The team notes that the facade’s varying transparency and translucency create “a protective enclosure that protects the exhibits while providing carefully curated views of the environment.”
This undulating effect is created by the corrugations that provide inherent structural rigidity, allowing the skin to stand as an independent system. The architects commented:This independent relationship between volume and surface means that the structure is not burdened by the weight of a heavy brick facade.’
within the proposed museum
Behind the structural brick curtain, Luca Poian Formin’s Oulu Museum and Science Center has flexible exhibition spaces, the transparent space of which is the entrance for new visitors. These spaces are organized with a very sensible layout to ensure a clear route through the building, both the visitor experience and operational efficiency. A spiral staircase leads to all five floors of the new addition as well as to the existing building.
The upper level “hyperflexible skylit exhibition hall” uses the structure itself as a canvas for reconfigurable partition walls. ‘Loaded with vertical structural elements, this floor is suitable for a wide range of media and events, allowing the building to host exhibitions of very different nature and scale.e,” the team explains. ‘Here, the museum experience extends to the roof of the former power plant, which can be accessed through the facade of the new building from the opening above the bridge connection.’
the modern extension is connected to the original building with a multi-layered glass box
on the top level there is an exhibition space illuminated in the sky
A sculptural spiral staircase provides access to all five levels