HOAS Windward Meadow

In the spring of 2021, the second tallest wooden apartment building in Finland and reportedly the tallest CLT prefabricated building in the world went up in Espoo's Tapiola city centre. The building has 13 floors, 165 apartments and 4 433 m² of living space.

The facade of Tuuliniitty features Siparila’s 20-mm-thick, pre-painted PLATTA facade panels (light-colored section) andTopcoat exterior cladding panels(dark gray section). Both PLATTA and Topcoat are pre-painted and feature concealed fasteners. This ensures that no nail heads are visible; instead, they are always hidden beneath the tongue of the adjacent facade panel. The result is a completely nail-free facade. This improves the facade’s weather resistance, as water and contaminants cannot damage the wood’s cellular structure through the nail heads.

The CLT cladding panels we developed for the project were treated in our factory with Tikkurila Ultra Pro 30, which protects the cladding from weather, moisture, sunlight and dirt. This means that the exterior cladding will remain beautiful for a long time, and maintenance painting will not be necessary for the next 15 years. Pre-painted cladding panels and cladding panels speeded up the building process considerably, as they are quick to install and did not need to be painted once on site. The only work left to do was to install the façade.

Wood is an excellent choice for the exterior of apartment buildings, as it reflects light naturally, giving the façade a distinctive look. Wood also does not absorb heat or cold in the same way as stone, so temperature variations do not show up inside in the same way as in stone houses.