Airam lights up Fiskets Hus

Vaasa’s Kalaranta has traditionally been home to local fishing boats. Now the seafront offers a new living room for the area’s residents, Fiskets Hus, where both locals and visitors who arrive by boat can come together to spend time and relax. The spectacular new building, which replaced an old indoor fish market, houses Restaurant HEJM, a bar, meeting and sauna facilities, the fish shop Fiskdisken and a delicatessen, as well as office and exhibition premises for the Ostrobothnian Fisheries Association. The restaurant and delicatessen offer delicacies made from local ingredients, either to eat in or take away. The selection, which consists of fresh and smoked locally-caught fish and Finnish meat, varies depending on the season.

The driving forces behind the house of fishing concept were the Ostrobothnian Fisheries Association, the fish restaurant and the fish shop and delicatessen that operate alongside it. The proposal by architect Ann-Charlott Hästö, producer Johanna Stenbacka and chef Michael Björklund won the design competition that was held to find a new plan for the area of Kalaranta in Vaasa. The plans were completed in 2017, and the construction work was finished in autumn 2019.

It is not a coincidence that the illuminated reflection of the building’s façade on the water is reminiscent of a glimmering fish, while the wood battens on the exterior walls bring to mind fishbones. The building forms an entity with the sea in all seasons. When the sea is not frozen, the outline of the building is reflected on the surface of the water.

• The arced ceiling is illuminated with Airam’s anti-glare Rigel II LED strip. Indirect illumination offers an ergonomic means of accentuating shapes and helping users to orientate in a space.
• The Rigel II LED strip is designed for interior and exterior areas, including wet spaces, where long, continuous lines of light are required. In combination with the beautifully finished wooden surfaces, the warm colour temperature of 3,000 K gives the clean-lined building its welcoming atmosphere.
• The surface-mounted Lid Mini luminaires on the exterior walls complement the building’s modern design. Thanks to their aluminium housing, the luminaires are protected against vandalism, corrosion and UV radiation.
• The elegant DM4 Double wall-mounted luminaires installed in the entrance areas illuminate the space vertically, highlighting the architectural features of the space. The end result creates a harmonious entity, which blends in with the coastal landscape.

The indoor spaces combine modern architecture with the warm, nostalgic atmosphere of traditional indoor markets. In the restaurant’s dining hall and shop area as well as elsewhere in the indoor spaces, the lighting solution highlights the wooden structures, which form an important architectural and design element. 

• On the shop premises, Airam’s Apus II and Norma II LED strips installed inside Slimline Wide R aluminium profiles blend in with the ceiling’s wooden battens, enhancing the sense of space and highlighting the architectural features.
• The damp-proof and compact Norma II LED strip comes into its own as a source of indirect light for facades and wet spaces. With a separate dimming control unit, the Norma LED strip can be adjusted either via a push button (Push dim) or DALI control system.
• Frey downlights were mounted on the suspended ceiling in the office premises. The recessed-mounted Frey is designed for corridors and workstations, but thanks to its IP44 rating, it is also suitable for wet spaces.
• For technical premises, Lumi and Sono luminaires were selected as the lighting solution.

According to the contractor, the battens on the diagonal panelling and the high, vaulted ceiling of this wooden element building complicated the installation of lighting. Special care had to be taken in the installation of cables to ensure that all the technical solutions could be hidden in the structures, giving a polished finish to the space, explains Jukka Pylväinen from Are Oy, adding that the client was extremely happy with the end result.