A peaceful oasis where you can close your eyes and relax, focusing only on your thoughts. This was the vision, when a group of designers started to build a new kind of place for customers of Helsinki Airport to stop and rest for a moment. These places are called Suvanto: quiet waters.
At the Helsinki Airport there are three Suvanto lounges. Fortum has created them together with five different companies. Suvanto is an oasis comprising work and rest locations, where people can work and relax. Suvanto also provides recharging stations for different electronic devices.
The three Suvanto lounges are located near the gates 16, 26 and 36. In cooperation with Fortum there have been five companies, Finavia, Martela, UPM, Karelia-Upofloor ja Clear Channel.
More energy for flights
Today almost all the flight passengers carry at least one or several electric devices with them. Almost all of them have also noticed how difficult it can be to find a plug point at the airport.
Fortum´s Communication and Marketing Director Aki Koskinen says that the idea of Suvanto was both make the waiting more comfortable for the passengers and also make it easier to for example work with a laptop between the flights.
–It is natural for us to cater to the daily power needs of air passengers. It is important that passengers can also recharge their devices at the airport, regardless of whether it is a camera taken on holiday or a work computer used for an important presentation. On top of that it is also very important to charge yourself, which means a short getaway from the rush of the airport, emphasizes Koskinen.
A permanent service at the airport
–Suvanto really is like quiet waters, a peaceful hollow where it is possible to focus on your thoughts or work. Visually it is a balanced and stylish wholeness and the curved lines give it an individual look, describes Martela´s Interior Architect Iiro Viljanen.
Suvanto furniture has been designed by Martela's Chief Designer Pekka Toivola in cooperation with Iiro Viljanen.
–User-friendliness was the foundation of the Suvanto design. We are confident that also through the airport and Suvanto, people will get a good idea of the design year, says Martela's Design Director Petteri Kolinen.
The cooperation of Suvanto lounges is one of Fortum´s World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 projects. Finavia's goal is to continue the Suvanto concept as a permanent element of Helsinki Airport's passenger services after the Design Capital Year. Expansion of the concept to cover other key airports in Finland is also possible.
Fortum is one of the main partners in cooperation of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012. Suvanto lounges are an extension of Fortum´s previous design capital project at the Helsinki Airport. In April Fortum opened 15 charging points at the gates 11, 18–19, 20, 21, 25, 27, 31, 32A, 32, 33, 37 ja 38.
Find out more about Fortum´s World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 projects.