Snow building workshops  
     

Photo: Olli-Paavo Koponen.
Photo: Olli-Paavo Koponen.

Traces of the Past – A Snowy Building Workshop


2025

part of the program of the Finnish Architecture and Design Days 2025 organized by Archinfo Finland, 2.2.2025, Haukilahti, Espoo

We organised a snow building workshop that was open to everyone. During the workshop we examined the remains of ruined structures on the shore of Haukilahti, such as the foundations of a house, a stone pier and an old cellar, and learned about the history of the area. Our goal was to build a parallel world out of snow to bring the ruins to life. Despite the season there was only the little snow that started snowing during the workshop, and in the end the building materials were beach sand, branches, reeds and kelp. The structure that we built brought smiles to passers-by and visitors came from the nearby dog park to explore it.

Event webpage (in Finnish)
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Phases of the built structure 5.2.-6.4.2025
Photos: Olli-Paavo Koponen
Snow building workshop - the snow frog
Course work, Art and Public Space master program, Oslo National Academy of the Arts

2024

I organised a series of building with natural materials workshops. I invited participants from my class, the rest of the school and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.

On Sunday 3.3.2024, was the first part of the workshop series – snow. Inspired by the site we chose and districted by the little amount of remaining snow, we made a snow frog to accompany wooden animal sculptures in a park next to our school. After breaking the melting, icy snow into smaller pieces it was easy to mould. We worked intensely despite the rain, and combining everyone’s vision of a frog we made it beautiful.
Photo: Sonja Nesterova.
Photo: Belén Santillán.
Photo: Belén Santillán.
Photo: Marieliz Morales Vega.

It looked like that the snow frog’s head was kicked off the day after it was built. After the dramatic beginning it stayed around two weeks almost unchanged, as a headless frog. Until one day there was a warm rain, and there was only a pile of gravel to remind of its existence.

The snow shelterI had been dreaming of building a snow shelter on the school yard. Then in the middle of January there was a snow chaos and suddenly it was possible. We made the shelter with two friends from my class with the contribution of people passing by. We went to ask to borrow a shovel from the school, but didn’t get one, so the shelter is built with a plastic basket, dustpans and a steel bar.

The shelter on the school yard has now vanished. It lasted 50 days (17.1.-7.3.). There were many kinds of weathers during this time. The shelter started to melt fast the day after its finishing event. At times melting stopped. The ground around it was often very slippery. Some gravel got thrown also on the shelter. Some trash flying around found its way to the shelter. At one point I bought a proper shovel and decided to dig a new proper entrance to the shrunken shelter. A couple of days later it had collapsed, and it looked like someone had been walking on it. Then the spring weather came for a bit and people started to eat their lunches around the shelter.

One thought behind building the shelter was to activate the school yard during cold and grey days, when rarely anyone stops there. One exception was the day building of the shelter started when there was so much snow that some people where snowboarding at the stairs. In the spring instead, when the weather is nice the space is full of people sunbathing.

The snow gateSnow building workshop, 22.12.2023, Kirkkonummi, Finland

During the Christmas holidays back in my hometown in Finland mom and I had a snow building workshop. We went to observe a park we had chosen as our site and found a ruined foundation of a housing building. We didn’t know the history of that house, so we sent photos of our snow building to the local newspaper suggesting them to ask the local people. We are still waiting for their response.

The historical layers and landscape of Kirkkolaakso in Kirkkonummi have been overshadowed by the Citymarket and new apartment buildings.
Photo: Sirkka Köykkä
Photo: Sirkka Köykkä

Waiting for a snowflake

Waiting for a snowflake was a poster on the school corridor inviting participants to snow building workshop that would be arranged when there would be snow. Underneath I printed the weather forecast of the week. The idea of the workshop was to invite the participants to play and use spaces during winter season that wouldn’t otherwise be used.

:)