No Place
No Place is a tribute to our office's history, Kaija and Heikki Siren, and their Lingonsö sea chapel designed in 1969. The client was inspired by this building and requested a contemporary version of this chapel.
We visited the building site, a rugged island on the Gulf of Finland coast, and discussed the upcoming project with the client, brainstorming together the concept for the spirit of the building. We described the task with words such as: nothing and everything – infinite – freedom – nature – sea – and thus the name No Place was born.
The elements of the rugged outer island, the wind-bent pines, rocks and the sea, dominate No Place’s architecture. The disciplined structure and extremely simplified details disappear in the powerful and ever-changing presence of nature, creating a strong human existential experience. Sturdy archaic larch pillars form a safe shelter and are simultaneously part of nature, in both calm and stormy weather.
