The Saimaanportti comprehensive school in Mikkeli is a new construction project where a new school building will be built on the site of the demolished Urpola school. The new school will house grades 1–9 of the comprehensive school as well as special education facilities for the same grade levels.
Billed as a multi-purpose building, it also includes sports facilities such as a gym and fitness centre, as well as outdoor playing fields and outdoor playgrounds which serve as an exercise area for the locals in the evenings and at weekends. Youth services, an after-school club and a community college will also be located in the multi-purpose building. The school’s facilities are also suitable for a variety of evening and weekend activities.
The school building is large, and it will serve a total of around 850 pupils and 120 staff. The large number of activities also require large premises – over 10,000 square metres of space, in fact. The construction work on the site began in May 2022, and the handover of the construction site was set for the beginning of January 2024.
Clean indoor air and acoustics are key
Juha Härkönen, Project Manager of the City of Mikkeli, says that the city’s criteria for the school construction contract were very much focused on the health, safety, and life cycle of the building.
“These indoor air issues have certainly been a hot topic in every municipality for the last few decades. That’s why we wanted to come up with solutions that would be as low-risk as possible in the light of modern knowledge.“
As for insulation, it was decided not to install fibre insulation in the building. The goal was to find insulation whose structure would not absorb moisture.
“We also wanted the soundproofing and acoustic solutions in the building to be above average when compared to typical school buildings. Further sound insulation needs also arise from the fact that the building is located close to a busy road.“
Environmentally friendly – what a nice surprise!
The indoor air solutions for the building will also factor in the building’s furnishings.
“As one example, the tops of furniture such as both fixed and movable cabinets will be slanted so that things cannot be stored on top of them to collect dust,” Härkönen said.
This is why cleaning professionals were also consulted during the building’s planning process.
“They had a chance to express their opinions on the choice of flooring materials, for example.“
Life-cycle thinking also played a large role in the design choices. The city wanted solutions that would last as long as possible.
“Although environmental friendliness was not the most important criterion for choosing Ewona partition wall insulation, the domesticity of the product, the amount of recycled material used, and the product’s recyclability were very positive factors.“
Green values are reflected in the project, for example in the fact that the outer wall elements were manufactured only a few kilometres away.
“That is going to be a pretty big advantage in terms of the carbon footprint,” Härkönen concludes.
Easy installation improves on-site workflow
Ville Kupiainen, Construction Manager at NCC, says that due to the material requirements of the partition wall insulation at the site, the insulation was selected from the products of two different suppliers.
“When the choice was narrowed down to those two, we decided on Ewona based on our previous experiences. We have used Ewona’s product in construction projects such as the Kuopio Taidelukio Lumit building.“
The cleanliness class during construction is P1, and the cleanliness class for IV systems is P1. The design and implementation is carried out based on the Kuivaketju10 construction procedure.
“The ease and adaptability of installing partition wall insulation is important to us. The uncoated Ewonawool is excellent for that purpose,” Kupiainen added.
Site manager Mikael Heikkinen says that Ewona garnered a lot of positive feedback, which was recorded in the NCC’s Best Practice programme notes.
“The insulation was delivered on time, and we received everything that we were supposed to. As customers, we were well taken care of, as we were able to get a suitable pallet size for our deliveries according to our wishes. Not all suppliers can do that. Ewona’s wool knife is good for cutting insulation and does the job better than other knives. The installation comfort of the material is also better than that of mineral wool, as the stiffer material stays in place better and doesn’t fall out between the beams. The material being dust-free also makes installation a pleasure.“
You can access the virtual construction site and the site’s own website here.