Experiencing the ultimate threshold
There are few special qualities like a port edge that forces awareness of our environment. A port is entirely defined by the edge, the transition from landscape to waterscape, a special experience that can be translated into space.
Located in Eteläsatama, Helsinki, the museum of art and design seeks to provide and emphasize on this ever-changing quality of the port, by making the edge line longer, providing different experiences of encountering the waterscape during the visitors and passers-by walk on the site. The museum becomes a part of the urban space, while encouraging more attention to this in between space. The buildings, while fully capable of functioning independently, together create the museum spaces, different areas that interact and interconnect each other. The volumes are completely closed to the city in the back and open to the port view to the front. The entrance ways to each building is also on the port side, to encourage the visitors to walk along the boundary before entering the museum. The emphasis on the threshold feeling of the port, combined with the arrival of boats as a possible means of transportation to the museum, create an ultimate Helsinki experience for the visitors and also the passers-by.
