New Museum Design Proposal – Helsinki, Finland | Polysmiths
Polysmiths' museum design for Helsinki combines public space, cultural identity, and architectural clarity — a competition entry rooted in landscape and community.
1st May 2025
New Museum Design – International Competition Entry in Helsinki
Polysmiths’ proposal for the new museum in Helsinki rethinks how public institutions connect to city life. This international design competition entry integrates landscape, culture, and form to create a museum that invites exploration and reflects Finland’s progressive identity.
The design features a sculptural façade, generous internal galleries, and a central courtyard to foster community interaction. Natural materials, layered spatial sequencing, and precise daylighting strategies were key to the visitor experience.
This project illustrates Polysmiths’ capacity to design cultural spaces with narrative and intent, rooted in context and built for longevity.
Case study: Helsinki Museum Competition
We entered the Helsinki Museum competition in 2024 - a museum in a new district of Helsinki, dedicated to the city of Helsinki and its people.
Tulisija, or ‘the hearth’, is a gateway to a new neighbourhood of the great city of Helsinki. It is a carbon neutral landmark demonstrating how sustainable architecture put its communities, and the environment, first.
Tulisija is designed as a democratic communal space, made for those who seek new insights, excited to be involved, curious to recharge, as well as those who may be uncertain visiting museums.
In collaboration with Atelier Pendhapa.
Museum as a collection of rooms
Tulisija is designed as a clustered of interconnected rooms congregating around a central circular garden, the hearth. This biodiverse, tranquil space is accessible by all, and is the Museum’s surprise gife to our visitors.
We have included a nursery as a ‘additional programme’, emphasizing the Museum as a democratic communal space.
Arrival and warmth
The volumes of the museum is respectful of its context, including the new neighbourhood, Saaret. The building outline is soft with their subtle curves, and the scale of the spaces are domestic, warm, and inviting.
Low-carbon brick, timber cladding, combined with structural glass create an efficient building rich in texture, sophisticated in detailing, demonstrating the care and effort that is put into building a truly human-scale, sustainable building for all.
Visit
The spaces are created using an efficient and robust post-tension structure, allow large spans with less material, encouraging free-flow wandering without a ‘fixed route’. It also create opportunities for open plan spaces adaptable for exhibitions, shows, and performances.
Tulisija has a biodiverse garden at its heart. That, with the use of natural, local, low-carbon materials, daylight, thermal, ventilation control, geothermic piles and solar roof, contribute to achieving BREEAM excellent.
Connect with the city
The gallery spaces sit adjacent to the shop and café, spilling out to the Market Square, as well as the waterfront promenade. This permeability is generous, and encourages repeated visiting for activities other than the galleries.
Tulisija is designed to create a sense of togetherness. It is created to facilitate a communal experience, to rejuvenate and recharge. Most important of all, Tulisija is a democratic space where one can feel empowered to wander, and be inspired and energized by design, architecture, by Helsinki, and by each other.
