Metsässä Asumista:
Forest Living in Katrineberg
Finland has a goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2035. Despite the country consisting of large forest areas, these are often converted to urban areas in order to make room for housing. FABRICations’ proposal for a new sustainable village in Katrineberg, located between the city of Vantaa and the Finnish countryside, therefore suggests a different way of building, but also a different way of living.
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Location
Katrineberg, Finland
Year
2024
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Landscape living, productive landscape, residential, public program
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Architecture/ Landscape Design
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Municipality of Vantaa
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Eric Frijters, Wesley Verhoeven, Amin-El-Didi, Sophie Jinhong Rioux, Jasper Linton, Ana Paula Amieva
Metsässä Asumista translates to forest living, and is a strategy that embraces the existing qualities of a region and provides an alternative to the traditional ‘parcel and row’ housing typologies.
Rather than separating nature and living through urban development, we want to work with what is already there, arranging houses in communities, connected to the natural landscape. This approach can be applied across scales — from smaller residential areas with low-density, to larger close-knit communities.
By bridging residential homes through shared gardens and terraces, we aim to generate a stronger sense of community and inclusion. These communities will be dually connected: internally by different collective spaces, and externally by a productive food forest.
Twenty hectares of interconnected nature will provide the residents with fresh, organic produce, such as apples, berries, and herbs, while forming habitat for local wildlife and maintaining ecological balance.
The forest living strategy is based on a maximized circular approach: optimal use of the existing building stock and facilitation of carbon neutral communities. These are made up of diverse, low-rise homes, consisting of timber — not only reducing carbon emissions, but also improving thermal efficiency and lowering energy consumption.
In such a way, Metsässä Asumista becomes a multifaceted strategy towards Finland’s goal of carbon neutrality. Not only does it connect key themes such as energy transitions, material cycles and resilient systems, but it also highlights how new ways of building inevitably invites new, healthier ways of living and connecting.
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