New European Bauhaus

   

AaltoSiilo is an official partner of the New European Bauhaus (NEB), the European Commission initiative connecting the European Green Deal to the built environment through three core values: sustainability, inclusion and beauty.

Aaltosiilo Ry joined the initiative in December 2024, becoming one of six official NEB partners in Finland and, at the time, the only partner based in the north of the country.

The relationship between AaltoSiilo and the New European Bauhaus goes beyond membership of a European network. The transformation of Alvar and Aino Aalto’s 1931 wood-chip silo in Meri-Toppila is putting many of the principles promoted by NEB into practice: preserving and reinventing existing architecture, developing new approaches to material reuse, bringing cultural and environmental concerns together, and involving communities directly in the transformation of their surroundings.

The project has since been presented by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Archinfo as a flagship example of New European Bauhaus implementation in Finland, and was selected by the European Commission as an example of architectural excellence through its Living Spaces peer-learning programme.

Central to AaltoSiilo’s contribution to the New European Bauhaus is the Oulu Protocol, developed through the work of Skene Catling de la Peña and Factum Foundation.

The Protocol proposes three interconnected principles — RE-INVENT, RE-USE and RE-VITALISE — as a framework for addressing industrial buildings and the communities around them.

RE-INVENT starts with existing structures. Rather than assuming that obsolete industrial architecture should be demolished, it asks what new uses can be found for buildings that have outlived their original function. AaltoSiilo itself provides the test case: an uninsulated concrete structure designed to store wood chips is being transformed into a place for culture, research and public activity.

RE-USE addresses what happens when demolition cannot be avoided. Instead of reducing buildings entirely to waste or aggregate, substantial components can be recovered and used again. At AaltoSiilo, this approach is being explored through concrete spolia — including in the construction of the AaltoKioski — as part of research into new architectural and structural possibilities for reclaimed material.

RE-VITALISE connects these architectural and material processes to social transformation. The reinvention of AaltoSiilo is inseparable from Meri-Toppila, the post-industrial neighbourhood surrounding it. Workshops, performances, research and public programmes are bringing local communities together with architects, artists, students and specialists from Finland and abroad.

The ambition is not simply to preserve an important Aalto building, but to use its preservation as a catalyst for something new.

 

AaltoSiilo is also contributing a specifically northern perspective to conversations around architecture, sustainability and cultural heritage.

In June 2026, AaltoSiilo Project Manager Valentino Tignanelli presented the project at UNESCO’s Expert Meeting on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urban Contexts in Paris. The presentation focused on community participation in the transformation of post-industrial spaces and the potential for industrial heritage to remain active within contemporary urban life.

AaltoSiilo has also developed relationships with European institutions and networks including the Creative Europe Programme and the Architects’ Council of Europe, while collaboration with universities is expanding through programmes including Erasmus+.

These connections are part of a wider ambition emerging from Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture: to use what is happening at one site in northern Finland to test ideas that can be shared and developed elsewhere.

In August 2026, this work entered a new phase with the establishment of the Arctic NEB Local Chapter, the first New European Bauhaus Local Chapter in Finland, officially recognised by the European Commission.

AaltoSiilo is one of its six founding partners, alongside the Arctic Construction Cluster, Arctic Factory, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, Oulu University of Applied Sciences and Proto—Designers of Northern Finland.

The Chapter creates a collaborative platform across Lapland, Northern Ostrobothnia and Kainuu, connecting cultural and creative organisations, educational institutions, municipalities, businesses and citizens. Its focus on resilient communities, sustainable environments, cultural heritage, innovation and co-design closely reflects the work already underway at AaltoSiilo.

Rooted in northern Finland while connected to the wider European NEB community, the Arctic NEB Local Chapter also provides a way to carry the networks and ideas generated through Oulu2026 beyond the European Capital of Culture year.

For AaltoSiilo, the New European Bauhaus provides both a network and a larger context for an experiment already underway in Meri-Toppila: how to work with what already exists — buildings, materials, histories and communities — and use it to make something new.