Ecoland-Leader WORKSHOP 15. - 16.4.2011 ENGLISH
SEMINAR AND WORKSHOP KUSTAVI 22. - 23.7.2011
Promotion of ecological and traditional building methods
in southwestern part of Finland
Location of the project and fields of interest
Our project is located in the Vakka-Suomi subregion in southwestern part of Finland and it is serving interests of 6 counties in the area.
In our country most of the built environment before the 1950s was realized with wood material and traditional wood building techniques. Since the 1960s Finland has been shifting towards modern industrial building methods and understanding of the traditional wood building techniques has been deteriorating. It has become a challenge to find skilled workers mastering the traditional wood building techniques to maintain our old wooden buildings.
With a lot of the traditional wooden buildings and habitats still existing in Vakka-Suomi, we have a strong need to maintain the knowledge of the traditional techniques to be able to keep our wooden buildings in good condition.
Recently we have also been witnessing growing interest for wider range of ecological building, for instance building with clay and utilizing common reed; until now these techniques have been quite marginal in our country. We want to encourage new entrepreneurship in these areas in order to bring the techniques available to the wider public.
Plans of specific activities
- We will publish a guide to serve both professionals and regular homebuilders. The guide will showcase sustainable solutions, give instructions about where to find proper materials and offer contact information of skilled constructors.
- We will organize seminars on ecological building. Our opening seminar took place in the beginning of February with 40 participants, many of them entrepreneurs. With their active participation we are able to tailor the future events according to pronounced needs. Our next seminar is international and it will be in Kustavi July 22-23.2011. During the seminar we will build a fireplace in an outside space.
- We will put up workshops where participants are able to get hand on experience of different techniques with skilled professionals. Themes will cover from building and repairing techniques of old buildings to renewable energies, building with clay etc.
- We will arrange visits to fairs and happenings, to places of interest both in Finland and abroad.
Expectations on the international co-operation
With the international co-operation we hope to boost the interest for those ecological building methods, which have been in marginal use in our country. We hope to create entrepreneurship and develop production of components so that for instance building with clay could become a real option.
Wood building tradition is our strong point and we believe there we have a lot to give. But we are also sure that in exchanging views with our foreign partners we will gain new perspectives for our own use in the wood building techniques.
Personel of the project
There are two persons working for the project. Ulla Kallio-Laine, a project specialist, is the project manager taking care of the practical management of the project. Ritva Laurila, a professional architect, is working as a project consultant concentrating on the substance matters. Ukipolis Oy is a development company owned by the communities of Vakka-Suomi and the applicant of the Ecoland Leader project. The financing for the project comes from Leader action group Ravakka.
Contact information
Ulla Kallio-Laine, project manager
+358 440 344 345
ulla.kallio(@)ukipolis.fi
Ritva Laurila, project consultant
+358 400 337 775
ritva.laurila(@)ukipolis.fi