Kankaanpää
Year of completion: 1995
Client: City of Kankaanpää
Extension: 4,260 sqm
Kankaanpää Art School is a vocational institute for training professional visual artists. The school building serves as a mediating element between the developing office center and surrounding townscape. The school stands on one side of Eläintori Square, creating a new locus in the urban setting.
The facilities are grouped around a central courtyard, which is entered from the square. Designed as an active space, the courtyard can be used for staging exhibitions and installations, as well as other activities such as concerts, performances or films. The entrance hall is designed to be a central interior space in the school; the shared facilities such as cafeteria, library, exhibitions spaces and the lecture hall, all give onto the three-storey hall. Main teaching facilities opening to the square have northern daylight and studiolike high ceiling.