Renovation · Helsinki harbour area

Tiilivarasto: a 1920s brick warehouse turned into workshops

A long brick warehouse by the harbour, empty for years, now holds twelve small workshops and a shared hall. The brick shell stays; everything new is steel, glass and perforated metal, easy to tell apart.

Project: SK-019
Type: Renovation, change of use
Location: Helsinki harbour area
Gross area: 1,680 m²
Units: 12 workshops of 30–40 m²
Completed: 2023
Client: Property company
Our role: Survey, change-of-use permit, design, site

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Site plan with the hatched warehouse by a harbour basin, the new stair tower and canopy in black and the site boundary in orange — **01 Site plan · 1:1000**The warehouse (hatched) between the quay road and the older industrial blocks, with the new stair tower and canopy in black and the yard dotted.

Plan of the warehouse with hatched existing brick walls, twelve workshop units along a corridor, the shared hall and the new stair tower — **02 Ground floor plan · 1:200**1 Workshop, one of twelve, 2 Corridor, 3 Shared hall, 4 Kitchenette with a mezzanine above, 5 New stair and lift tower, 6 Yard. Existing brick walls are hatched, new walls are black.

Section through the brick warehouse with thick walls, timber roof trusses, a steel mezzanine, a roof light and level markers — **03 Section C–C · 1:100**Through the shared hall: 640 mm brick walls, the repaired timber trusses, the new steel mezzanine and a roof light. The new floor slab sits on the old foundations.

Axonometric of the brick warehouse with ten roof lights, a canopy and the perforated metal stair tower — **04 Axonometric**From the south: the brick facade with its original openings, ten new roof lights, the canopy over the hall doors and the stair tower in perforated metal.

The building

The warehouse was built in the 1920s to store goods from the harbour. It has solid brick walls up to 640 mm thick and timber roof trusses spanning sixteen metres. The street facade is protected in the local detailed plan.

A change of use

Turning storage into workplaces needed a change-of-use permit, fire compartments, accessible routes and a second exit from the upper level. We put the new stair and lift in a tower outside the brick shell, so the old walls needed no new holes for them.

Twelve workshops and one hall

The units, 30 to 40 m² each, line a central corridor. The middle bay became a shared hall with the two large doors to the yard, a kitchenette and a small mezzanine for meetings.

Old and new, easy to tell apart

The brick was cleaned and repointed with lime mortar, and damaged trusses were repaired rather than replaced. New parts are steel, glass and perforated metal, bolted rather than built in, so a later owner can change them without touching the original fabric.

What we delivered

Building survey and condition report with a structural engineer
Change-of-use permit and talks with the city’s heritage experts
Construction drawings for the new tower, mezzanine and units
Site supervision during the renovation

Next project

024 Kolme pihaa

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