Bo LKV is a Finnish real estate agency, officially founded in Turku, Finland. The company is focused on selling, and housing different premises around the city areas of Finland and is known for its high expertise in architecture and design. After getting the company’s roots refined, Bo has been emerging into new cities in Finland. This was something that the company did also this year, as they found their fourth office location in Helsinki. At the moment, Bo has 16 different offices in 12 cities in Finland.
Last Autumn, the company started to look for a new office space in Helsinki and found an interesting option from the street of historic noble houses in Kruununhaka. As a location, Kruununhaka is known for its community spirit and its lively and active lifestyle culture. For Bo LKV, this kind of surrounding was a perfect match for the needs of a real estate agency. Not only was the accessibility well-suitable for the customers and employees of Bo, but also the classic style and elegance of the building perfectly suited the company’s image and profile. Thus, the company decided to renovate its new office location in Helsinki.
“After the very first visit to the new office premises, we knew right away that this was the one for us. Even though we understood that the renovation for the place was going to be a long and hard one since the business space has served as a restaurant before, we wanted to start the project,” says Jenni Leikas, Interior Architect at Bo LKV.
Because of the value and very elegant colour of the surrounding area in Kruununhaka, it was evident that Leikas wanted to bring those colours and feelings inside the office space as well. The solutions to these very specific needs of Bo were perfectly found in Teknos’ coatings, more precisely, from the BIORA product family.
BIORA AIR is a smart tech paint developed especially for better indoor air quality. Namely, BIORA AIR coatings catch and transform formaldehyde and other impurities from the air into harmless components with a technology based on aldehyde binding properties. Formaldehyde is one of the substances listed in the EU as being in high connection with indoor air quality, commonly used, for example, in the manufacture of building materials. To keep an eye on sustainability, BIORA AIR has also gotten a Nordic Swan Ecolabel. This means that the coating has passed all the strict measurement phases from product lifecycle analysis to chemical usage, to make it easy for customers to choose the environmentally best products. These important labels of BIORA AIR fostered the product selection process of Bo’s, as the company certainly wanted to make sure that the coatings were safe to use for indoor purposes.
BIORA AIR products are highly suitable for inside office spaces where indoor air quality plays a crucial role in fostering the workplace’s well-being by improving and purifying air quality. Bo was surprised to hear that the cleansing effect of these coatings can last up to five to ten years. As Bo LKV wanted its visitors and employees to experience the best possible workplace experience, they were highly satisfied with the air cleaning features of BIORA AIR, knowing the fact that up to 90% of our time is usually spent indoors - the office space air quality is an important part of every employee’s health.
As air quality is directly linked to the performance of the office employees, it also influences those individuals' productivity. Good indoor air makes people happy, productive, and comfortable, and that was something that Bo wanted to pay attention to.
As there was hope for the paints to be functional in terms of the air purifying features, there was also another issue that needed to be addressed. Since there had previously been an opportunity for the restaurant customers to smoke inside the building, this had not only led the indoor air to become a little frowzy but also the walls had gotten discolorated due to the usage of nicotine cigarettes inside the building. Luckily, Teknos´ TIMANTTI STOP –product solved this problem with its specially selected features to refresh the wall surfaces and start preventing the nicotine and stains from rising to the surfaces again. Now, the walls are again able to shine bright, look fresh, and last long.
Even though Teknos’ paints used in this renovation all had some functionalities, Bo also chose to use those because of the sophisticated and matt-finished colors of the paints. As Bo’s experts were known to be skilled in design and architecture, they were aware of the differences between paints and how those can affect the overall feeling and atmosphere of the office, and they were satisfied to choose BIORA products to use.
The coatings used enabled Bo to have the wanted elegant and matt-finished colors on the walls, but they also worked perfectly for the old surfaces that needed to be professionally repainted. It was also beneficial for the company to find such an easy solution for their various needs from just one product group, namely, BIORA AIR also has the needed long-lasting wear and wet scrub resistance factors which are necessary on the office surfaces which will be under heavy usage.
Now, after the extensive renovation, the office space warmly welcomes its visitors and has begun to thrive for the next future generations. The impressive atmosphere of the office starts as soon as one enters the front door. The eye wanders from the harmonious herringbone parquet to the sculptural lounge group and stops at the striking, black-framed glass elements.
“I wanted to design revolving doors between the lounge and the conference room to support the multiple adaptabilities of the spaces when necessary.”, Jenni adds.
In addition to the glass elements, beautifully changing colours created by Teknos coatings on the wall surfaces arouse interest and desire to move forward to explore the whole office and its multiple rooms. When it comes to furniture and other materials, those were kept neutral to respect the spirit of the old building. In addition to the practicality of the furniture, the neutral colour choices make a nice contrast to the playful wall colors. However, even though the colours are very unique and uplift the office spirit perfectly, they are also very elegant in the sense of being pleasing to the eye and timeless. For this reason, there will be no need for Bo to plan additional repainting in the coming years since the colors by BIORA AIR will be looking stylish for a long time.
According to the story, there is also a giant mirror decorating the back wall of the workspace which is also argued to be the largest uniform mirror surface in Helsinki. In other words, Bo’s office could be called the pearl of Kruununhaka because of its unique and classic style combined with the freshness and elegance fine-tuned to the smallest detail.
Location: Bo LKV Kruununhaka
Photography: Juuso Soininen
Interior Design: Jenni Leikas