The Carpenters Workshop was part of the harbor industries during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The original building had two stories made of limestone and stood on a simple foundation. The ground, formerly seabed, is soft, and it is known that the building significantly slipped in the 1980s. During the detailed planning of the Rotermann quarter, the building was excluded from the planning zone as an existing historic house with no planned changes. In a 2006 competition, we proposed the idea of creating three industrial cooling tower shapes on top of the house. This proposal was made because the square in front of the house was losing its impact due to the low height of the carpenters' workshop building.
The tall and slender towers create a rhythm reminiscent of Japanese-style spaces. A distinctive quality of these rooms is that each floor in every tower constitutes a unique space, with an elevator opening directly into the room. The major challenge was to ensure the towers were structurally sound. After many unsuccessful attempts, the following solution was implemented: The towers are supported by 18-meter-high piles because the bedrock is very deep. It's somewhat like an ant's nest—the foundation of the tower extends underground as much as the towers rise above the ground.
The towers are supported by the staircases and lift shafts, which act as solid diaphragm walls. The tower floors are cantilevered, and the facades are hung from them. The tower structure was built up through the existing building with minimal damage to the vaulted ceilings. The building is occupied by restaurant, candy shop, the towers - by music agencies, advertising companies, and small law offices. The tower floors feature facades that reflect the structural design of cooling towers. The windows conform to this shape, creating distinctive triangular forms. In the evening, the rooms are illuminated with red light, creating an illusion for guests exiting the nearby cinema that ships from an extraterrestrial civilization have arrived. This has been a revolutionary approach to cultural heritage, specifically in how we handle industrial heritage.
Photos: Kaido Haagen, Kaupo Kalda, Amaury Wenger, KOKO