An entire office building, sailing on the cruise ferries' fairway

A three-storey structure put together from steel cells at the STX shipyard in Turku sailed to the island of Hirvensalo at the mouth of the River Aura on Thursday - just like a ferry to Sweden.

The building, complete with windows and wall tiles, was towed on a large pontoon along the shipping lane around the island of Ruissalo, leading to the Port of Turku. The sea lane is also used by ferries to and from Sweden, which in themselves resemble large apartment buildings*.

A new kind of unique steel sandwich structure allows the transport and transfer of a completed multi-storey building.

The building has been assembled on site from hollow thin galvanised steel plates. Even though they are hollow, they are very durable.

The building in question has a floor area of some 300 square metres per storey, totalling close to 1,000 square metres.

Owing to the hollow frame, the building weighs only 250 tons, which means that it is 3 to 5 times lighter than a concrete building of the same size.

The material is rigid, but the structure is flexible, which enables its transport and transfer - even repeatedly - to various locations.

Olli Vuola, the CEO of Neapo Oy, the chief contractor of the building, hopes that this Finnish patented invention could get access to the world market and particularly to areas hit by earthquakes, as the flexible structure also withstands the shaking of the ground beneath it.


The building was assembled inside a large shipyard hangar at the STX shipyard in Turku (see earlier article).

The STX shipyard is one of the few places in Finland where this kind of building can be completed indoors, without being at the mercy of the weather.

The building had been ordered by Nostokonepalvelu Oy, which handled its transportation to Lauttaranta on the island of Hirvensalo on Thursday.

In its final location, the building will be welded onto the eight piles which have been driven into the seabed on a leasehold site close to the shore.

It would also have been possible to leave the building floating on the pontoon.

On the seashore, the completed building will be connected with water supply pipes, waste water drainage, and the mains electricity supply.

According to Kalervo Nieminen, the Chairman of the Board of Nostokonepalvelu, the purpose is to lease out office premises to various companies. Later on, it will be possible to move the building to another location if necessary.

*An old joke in the capital was that the only skyscrapers in Helsinki were to be seen in the South Harbour, and they were turned on their side and left the city every evening. Now there are plans on the table for genuine skyscrapers, for instance in Central Pasila.

HELSINGIN SANOMAT
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