JYVASKYLA.- This exhibition in the Gallery at the Alvar Aalto Museum is showing drawings and models of shelters designed for research workers in the Koli landscape. These fresh ideas and inventive methods of implementation, designed by students in the Department of Architecture at the University of Oulu, are part of the studies carried out at the Laboratory of Contemporary Architecture between 2003 and 2008.

The idea of this, the first building design task given to these architectural students, is to investigate and illustrate the problems of architecture. These shelters for research workers, set in the Koli national park, hark back to the basic questions of Finnish building, to the basic requirements set by the natural surroundings and the opportunities offered by natural materials. The building’s relationship with the surroundings, the path of the sun, the changing seasons, the view, and with materials and function become familiar to the students in a concrete manner during the course of the project. The experimental nature of the task and the available materials, mainly wood and glass, bring their own challenges to the design. The students supplement the project during their second year in the construction laboratory, when plans of work that can actually be implemented are drawn up using sketches and models.

The exhibition will be opened in conjunction with the international Alvar Aalto meeting on modern architecture, entitled ‘building-designing-thinking’. The seminar is being held in Jyväskylä on August 30-31, 2008. The exhibition has been prepared by students in the Department of Architecture at the University of Oulu under the direction of Professor Rainer Mahlamäki, senior assistant Lauri Louekari and their teachers Antti Karsikas and Kalle Vahtera.