Imatra Electricity Substation

Awards:
Good Design Award Gold 2022
Dezeen Awards 2021, Highly Commended, Business building
ICONIC AWARDS 2021: Innovative Architecture, best of best
Architizer A+Awards 2021, Jury winner, Architecture+Brick
Silver A’ Design Award 2021
Nominations:
Brick Award 22, Finalist, Working together
Architizer A+Awards 2021, Finalist, Factories & Warehouses
World Architecture Festival 2021, Finalist, Production, Energy and Recycling

The project is composed of an electricity substation building and five transmission towers and terminals, set in the national landscape of Imatrankoski rapids. The substation is close to the Imatra hydropower plant from the 1920s and the origin point of Finland’s first main power grid from the same period. The historical significance of the area was the reason for our client to pursue an exceptional substation facility.

The different parts of the substation facility extend over two tributaries of the Vuoksi river. The main design challenge was to form a coherent whole that fits in the iconic setting. The design breaks apart aspects of the built context and reassembles them in a new abstracted form. The derived design language gives a unified identity to the new project and places it in the context.

Completion: 2020
Location: Imatra, Finland
Client: Fingrid Oyj
Photography: Max Plunger
Publications: ArchDaily   Arkkitehti  Dezeen