Service Station of the Future

First prize in the “Service Station of the Future” competition for Neste and Tuusula Housing fair 2020. The competition entry proposed a variety of services fitted in individual prefabricated timber-structured modules that can be easily installed and replaced to answer the unknown needs of the future.

The task in the larger context

Tuusula housing Fair arranged an ideas competition for a landmark building in co-operation with Neste. On one hand they were looking for a social hub for the surrounding community – on the other there was a quest for finding answers for the heavily disrupted needs of the transport, sources of energy and consumerism.

Our solution

The competition entry stated that the future needs are something that will be defined in the future. To answer these needs we built a flexible system of prefabricated timber structured spaces that hold one function each and that can be easily installed and replaced.

The core of the design was a courtyard that brings the community together. The possible functions of the spaces ranged from common services to youth houses, chess clubs, recycling storages, workshops and closed circuit food production facilities.

From the competition to the built prototype

After the competition phase the prototype to be built in Rykmentinpuisto in Tuusula was heavily simplified. The tight plot was divided into the zones of the vehicles and the pedestrians. The concept of prefabricated timber units was kept and turned into a village of facilities surrounding the central courtyard.

The built prototype dives deep into the themes of circular economy. The asphalt covering the trafficked areas is built using recycled roof bitumen. The fillings under the asphalt are of recycled concrete. The rock base on the plot was not excavated for hiding the fuel tanks yet the tanks are placed in a timber structured landmark container/canopy in the middle of the complex. The station has opened in July 2020.