Case Asemapäällikönkatu 3, Helsinki Finland

Asemapäällikönhovi is a commercial, office, and residential building in the Itä-Pasila district of, Helsinki. It is internationally renowned for its architecture and role in the history of the media industry. Completed in 1976, the building was designed by architect Eino TuompoThe building is owned by Osakeyhtiö Asemapäällikönhovi. The property has a gross floor area of 15,921 square metres. Around 75% of the gross floor area is commercial space and 25% is residential. The German Architecture Museum (DAM) has showcased the building in its SOS Brutalism exhibition. The City of Helsinki has added the building to its myhelsinki.fi service as a tourist attraction and architectural site. The building is also part of the service’s Itä-Pasila tourism site. (wikipedia)

Implemented by: sale, design, planning, project management, installations, programming, commissioning, maintenance, remote monitoring and maintenance by Smart Heating Oy.

Supervised by: Insinööritoimisto Leo Maaskola Oy

Implemented building services:

1. Exhaust air heat recovery for residential and commercial premises, heat recovery and district heating + data centre condensation heat recovery hybrid heating system. The next phase will include the implementation of condensate heat recovery from a K-kauppa supermarket’s commercial refrigeration, plus connection to the hybrid heating system.

• A centralised cooling system for apartments. Residential cooling using heat recovery technology. An exhaust air heat pump, heat recovery devices, and air handling units remove excess heat from apartments in summer. Cooling network condensation is directed primarily to boiler for preheating domestic hot water and to superheating boiler for domestic hot water production. Secondarily, it is directed outdoors via coils in Retermia’s heat recovery devices and air handling units. A water-filled cooling network is installed in the property and runs from the heat distribution room via stairwells into the apartments. Fan coil units have been installed in apartments for cooling. This kind of centralised cooling system makes it possible to implement cooling even in buildings that lack the space for apartment-specific air source heat pump outdoor units.

• The renovation of building automation throughout the entirety of the residential building and commercial spaces. An intelligent building automation system with dynamic electricity price-based control will be installed in the property. The control system factors in seasonal district heating rates as well as dynamic electricity prices, optimising the use of heat pumps and district heating accordingly. The property company’s board, property managers and shareholders can monitor system function using the mobile Smart Heating App.

• Utilising condensation heat from the data centre located in the building in heat pump technology to heat the entire property through the heat exchanger network and ventilation network, and in desuperheater charging for domestic hot water production.

Justifications

Improving energy efficiency in the brutalist 1970s concrete apartment block, which is equipped with mechanical ventilation, to bring it to 21st-century levels using exhaust air heat recovery and waste heat from a data centre. District heating consumption will decrease by around 72%. The system was commissioned on 24 June 2026, and the final measurement results will be complete in summer 2027 after the system’s first heating season. The property also houses a K-kauppa supermarket, from which the aim is to recover waste heat from the store’s commercial refrigeration in the next phase, once the store’s cooling technology has been upgraded.

A significant improvement in living conditions. The new Retermia HRU exhaust fans serving the apartments are steplessly controlled. The ventilation system features a frost protection setback function which reduces draughts in the apartments. Long periods of hot weather due to climate change cause intolerably high indoor temperatures in the apartments. The cooling system and fan coils installed in the apartments help to tackle this.

The new hybrid heating and cooling system achieves significant savings in heating costs. Investment calculations estimate the savings in heating costs to be 45%. The calculation accounts for the electricity consumed by the heat pumps and the reduction in the fixed monthly fee for district heating.

Improving energy efficiency in the existing building stock is extremely important from a climate perspective and for the achievement of energy efficiency goals. We would like to draw the panel’s attention to this exceptional building services solution that will improve the energy efficiency of the existing building stock. It is not enough that new buildings are designed and constructed to meet class A energy efficiency standards. Public buildings, office premises, shopping centres and sports halls are all equipped with ventilation equipment that features highly efficient heat recovery systems. In Finland, apartment buildings built between the 1950s and 2000s were fitted with mechanical exhaust ventilation systems that blow out room-temperature exhaust air day and night. These residential properties fall through the cracks with regard to energy efficiency. Smart Heating has developed an efficient hybrid heating solution controlled with an intelligent automation system The heat recovery technology also enables cooling (European patent), which is essential in the summer for achieving comfortable living conditions.