Dipoli — Aalto University
A new arrival that honors a building without equal while activating campus life and deepening the experience of nature.
Curious for more?
Bjørn Ginman
Senior Lead Designer, Project Director, Landscape Architect MAA MDL
Location
Espoo, Finland
Size
6,000 m2
Year
2020 — 2024
Client
Aalto University Campus & Real Estate (ACRE)
Role
Lead landscape architect
Partners & Collaborators
Rambøll
Dipoli at Aalto University is a building without comparison – and a masterpiece of Finnish modernism. Originally designed by architects Raili and Reima Pietilä in 1966, and situated within Alvar Aalto’s campus masterplan, the building holds special cultural and historical significance.
In SLA’s design of a new entrance and landscape for Dipoli, we sought to amplify the building’s distinctive architectural vision and the surrounding natural landscape, while integrating Dipoli into SLA’s more expansive campus-wide landscape masterplan.
Historically, the campus has been somewhat fragmented and car-oriented, with large monocultural green areas that offer limited social value and protection from the increased rainfall brought by climate change. The landscape for Dipoli addresses these challenges by strengthening spatial connections, social life, and ecological value.
“Dipoli is designed to wait and see what happens when the blasted rock becomes overgrown and the metal ages so that it begins to turn green, so that the deep forrest, the Finnish garden, slowly returns.”
— Reima Pietilä in his article 'Taken literally: morphology, Arkkitehti, issue 9/1967
Dipoli is renowned for its use of natural materials – pine, copper, and stone – and its organic shapes that echo the geology and bedrock beneath the building. These qualities form the foundation of SLA’s landscape design, where materials, topography, and vegetation work together to tell the site’s story.
Our landscape transformation introduces a new main pedestrian route that improves movement across the campus and establishes Dipoli as a natural meeting point. Broad concrete plateaus are cast directly onto the bedrock, which lies just beneath the surface – now exposed as part of the design. From here, a meandering stone-paved path passes beneath tall pines and leads visitors toward Dipoli’s main entrance.
The new entrance square creates space for informal gatherings and includes custom-made benches crafted from local granite and wood. The square is arranged around the existing mechanical sculpture Käpy (pinecone), designed by three Aalto University students in 1968.
The biodiverse forest floor from the neighbouring site is extended to the foot of the building, giving Dipoli a sensuous, layered landscape. Two new forest platforms, constructed from wooden planks, hover lightly among the planting and offer spaces for outdoor leisure, study, and temporary exhibitions – bringing campus life closer to the forest and allowing nature to become an active part of everyday use.
