Helin & Co Architects, Woodwork exhibition, Venice Architecture Biennale: Time Space Existence, 2016.

One of the key tasks assigned to architecture by the Modernist revolution was the existenz minimum dwelling project. This task is no less topical now, a hundred years later, despite the advance of production, economy, and technology witnessed in both developing and highly developed countries. Along with generally growing wealth and, on the other hand, strong polarisation of material opulence, architectural tasks are divided into multilevel compartments highly differentiated according to situation: from the reality of existenz minimum to the illusion of existenz maximum.
One big change in the architectural ethics of our time is that today we understand the significance of, and conditions set by, the limitedness of physical resources. Mental welfare is tied to this: architecture can genuinely enhance the lives of both individuals and communities by means of positive experiences of space, materials, and functional arrangement. Architecture can influence our moods and feelings – it can provide inspiration for dwelling as well as work. Architecture is an art of space and an art of the environment, also in its modest forms, at its simplest and most ascetic.
An individual architect’s creative work sets off from his/her own existence and is based on the mental and physical culture of his/her circle of acquaintances and surrounding nature. In the Nordic Countries, culture comes into its own as realistically simple, equality-oriented, and reduced to modesty in its manifestation. In the Nordic Countries, indigenous nature is near, present, and in our consciousness.