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Japanese Tomoyo Nakamura was one of the students in last year’s Wood Program, responsible for the Kokoon house project. “Kokoon was our final project and we constructed it by ourselves. There were 18 people with 13 different nationalities. I was responsible for the structure and its detail”, she says.

The Department of Architecture’s Wood Program is a one year intensive program focusing on wood and wooden architecture. The program explores the ecological, technical and architectural properties of wood. Every year the students design and build an experimental wooden building as a final project of the program.

Students assembling the Kokoon house. Photos: Léa Pfister.

“Our task was to design a transportable house. Kokoon can be moved around by truck and stacked in various configurations. Each unit has a big skylight which lets the sunlight in“, says Nakamura. Kokoon was designed to meet the needs for temporary accommodation, and it could offer a place for living for asylum seekers, students, residents displaced by building renovations, and others.

Nakamura was very pleased with the learning outcomes of the project: “Discussing, drawing and constructing with other group members who have different talents was very exciting and broadened my perspective.” She hopes that displaying the house at Flow could make people think about the housing problem or make them consider the possibility of living in a small space. “Or it could just make them comfortable”, Nakamura adds.

Inside the Kokoon. Photo: Anne Kinnunen.

takes place 11–13 August in Suvilahti, Helsinki. Aalto University is one of the partners of Flow 2017. The Kokoon house will be open to visitors throughout the festival.

More information:

Wood Program: /en/wood-program

Kokoon-talo:

Students in the Kokoon project were: Alexander Rantanen Barstad, Akın Cakıroglu, Kristin Ekkerhaugen, Satoshi Iiyama, Nicklas Ivarsson, Stephanie Jazmines, Yuko Konse, Sini Koskinen, IgnacioTraver Lafuente, Toni Lahti, Tomoyo Nakamura, Taeho Noh, Léa Pfister, María Inés Quirarte, Käbi Noodapera Ramel, Ivan Segato, Tanja Vallaster, Eduardo Wiegand.