SRV GROUP PLC PRESS RELEASE 24 MAY 2018, 11:00 AM
REDI to emphasise experiences of relevance through art
The REDI shopping centre, implemented by SRV at Kalasatama in Helsinki, will have a significant amount of art located in a public urban space. The art is aimed at making the urban, compact and highly built-up environment particularly relevant to the residents of the REDI tower buildings, shopping centre visitors, passers-by and other inhabitants of the Kalasatama area.
Finland’s growth centres are becoming more compact at an accelerating rate. Finland therefore needs pathfinders who are able to plan and build urban, high-rise cities whose residents experience them as relevant.
“REDI is becoming Finland’s most urban city centre, and our task in SRV is to serve its future users and residents. By developing urban centres, we want to provide the best customer experience. A significant amount of art located in a public urban space will therefore be implemented at REDI. We don’t only wish to build a good environment, we also seek to stimulate debate on how to create it,” says SRV’s Deputy CEO, Timo Nieminen.
Art coordination has already, during the planning phase, brought the creators of art works into traditional construction industry working groups. In addition to its aesthetic value, the role of art as a creator of the overall maritime, urban and industrial experience of the area has been taken into account in art coordination, as has the value of art when used as part of the urban environment.
“At best, the urban space acknowledges its history – it is unique and relevant to its users. This means that people are able to orient themselves in the area, experience it as their own, and can feel extraordinary enthusiasm and pride about it. In a successful city, you don’t need to visit an art gallery or art museum to obtain stimulation, enjoyment, elation, insights and heightened experiences,” says Nieminen.
The scale of art in the REDI area will vary. Alongside exceptionally large, urban-scale permanent works, project-oriented, temporary, communal and, for example, light-installation works and experiences have been, and will be, brought to REDI. The task of all of them will be, in different ways, to create good feeling, joy and understanding.
As part of the overall plan, Finland’s largest mobiles, created by artist Jenni Rope, have already been completed and installed at Kalasatama’s Health and Wellbeing Centre. Coming up next will be a ventilation duct converted into a Whalefish (Valaskala) by Architectural Office Maisema, Architectural Office HLP and sculptor Pertti Kukkonen, which will be located in front of the urban centre; a 180-metre Helsinki-theme painting by artist Silja Rantanen, which will be located on the Baana cycle path; paintings by graphic artist EGS in the parking cave system; and a partly communal work by the internationally renowned ceramic artist Heini Riitahuhta, at the first to be completed residential tower. Sculptor Hans Christian Berg’s Nereids, the winning submission to an international invited competition, will be completed in front of the urban centre in September 2018.
For further information, please contact:
Timo Nieminen, Deputy CEO, SRV, tel. +358 400 424 552, timo.nieminen@srv.fi
Heli Pulkkinen, Communications Specialist, REDI by SRV, tel. +358 50 411 0787, heli.pulkkinen@srv.fi
REDI in brief
REDI, implemented by SRV at Kalasatama, Helsinki, will comprise the inner city’s largest shopping and experience centre as well as eight tower buildings. The elevator shafts and stairwells of the eight towers have been built simultaneously with the frame of the parking facility and shopping centre, all the way to the shopping centre’s roof level. In total, around 2,000 apartments will be completed in the REDI towers in the coming years. Below the centre will be a 2,000-space parking facility, usable by both the towers’ residents and the shopping centre’s customers. Construction work at REDI, Finland’s largest urban construction project, was launched in spring 2015 and is expected to continue until 2023.
The REDI shopping centre will open in autumn 2018 and Majakka, the first of the tower buildings to be completed, will receive its first residents in spring 2019. The remaining tower buildings will be completed in stages by 2023. Construction of REDI’s second tower building, Loisto, is due to begin in summer 2018.
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