Embassy of the USA | Helsinki, Finland 2014

Architects: Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners
Associate Architects: Page Southerland Page LLP.
Client: Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations
General Contractor: B.L. Harbert International, LLC.
Photographer: Werner Huthmacher and Gulliver Theis

The newly renovated and expanded United States Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, is presented as an example of contemporary civic architecture and site development in a landmark cultural and historic context.
The design integrates multiple aspirations, and celebrates the function of the embassy as a cultural as well as diplomatic mission.

Key features and accomplishments of the built project include:
• LEED Platinum adaptive re-use of a historic 1915 residential building into a high-performance workplace called the Innovation Center;
• A carefully scaled modern addition that connects and complements two adjacent heritage buildings;
• Inventive use of materials that resonate with Helsinki’s distinct environment and climate;
• Site planning and landscape that resolve complex conditions of topography, access, edges, and neighborhood;

The creation of a welcoming waterfront landmark that identifies Helsinki’s diplomatic district to all who arrive by sea Occupied by the United States since the 1930s, the existing Embassy campus consisted of two main buildings: a 1930s Georgian-style Chancery and residence, and a 1915 Baroque-style apartment house that had previously been converted to office use. Strikingly different in style and character, the existing structures were in need of security and life-safety upgrades.

Between the two buildings sat an odd-shaped sliver of allowable buildable area dictated by security and city-prescribed setbacks.

The immediate context of the Embassy in Helsinki’s Kaivopuisto neighborhood is spectacular— overlooking the granite shores of the Gulf of Finland, the site is surrounded by an established community of fellow embassies and upscale apartment homes. Views to the Embassy are prominent from the passing cruise ships and ferries.

The new Chancery building holds the center of the 3-building composition with singular form, while addressing the complementary conditions of a leafy green neighborhood of historic villas to the south and west, and the spreading, often icy expanse of the Gulf of Finland to the north and east. Facing the neighborhood, the white brick elevation is textured with vertical fins, catching the typically horizontal sun and echoing birch forests with dots of gray granite. Actual birch trees form a small grove in the landscape, mediating the building’s scale and presence on the street. Projecting window bays give sculptural impact to a relatively small proportion of fenestration.

On the Gulf side, a composition of cool glass surfaces and textures hovers over a dark granite base, and frames a garden of regional plantings. The blue-hued surfaces link water and sky, and give the new Chancery a connection to Finland’s world-famous, modern glass-making craft. The curved channel glass wall glows through the dark winter and is a beacon of light across the bay.

The renovation of the Innovation Center transformed the building from a tired and inefficient office space to a model of high-performing workplace sustainability, which led to its recognition as America’s first LEED Certified Platinum embassy facility in the world. It has become a showcase of sustainable design for local and international professionals and politicians and is now used as the global headquarters of The League of Green Embassies.

Landscape design connects the embassy to its region with careful selections of structure and plant materials. In harmony with the curved forms of the new Chancery, a serpentine layering of black granite walls shapes topography, while threading vehicular circulation through the site with minimum impact. Small groves of birch trees drift across green carpets of flowering ground cover, sheltering informal paths that connect the newly built center of the site with adjacent historic gardens.

The spirit of this Embassy is one of exploration and innovation when it comes to international diplomacy, culture, and business relations. The reinvigorated campus has finally been brought into concert with the ambitious goals of the Embassy and the unique context of Helsinki.