Honkarakenne: Tuusula Housing Fair – Honka Huomen is a smart log house for living the good life

Honkarakenne: Tuusula Housing Fair – Honka Huomen is a smart log house for living the good life

PRESS RELEASE 29 October 2019 at 10:00

At the Tuusula Housing Fair 2020, Honkarakenne will be presenting a concept home that has been designed to promote healthy living and overall wellbeing. Honka Huomen combines healthy natural materials and ecological log construction with smart building technology that improves quality of living. The house will go on sale at the housing fair in summer 2020.

"Honka Huomen is a smart log house that takes care of both its residents, itself and the environment. In this concept home, we explore living solutions that improve quality of life. We wanted to create a home where you can pause for a moment to relax in the middle of a busy day,” says Honkarakenne’s Marketing Director Sanna Huovinen.

Functional spaces and well-thought-out details for quality living

Honka Huomen is a single-storey detached house with a living area of 121 m2. It easily adapts to families with children, couples working remotely, and even retirees. The exhibition home has been designed for all the senses – it combines the stylish architecture of urban log houses, the scent of wood, harmonious interior decor and lighting, and a pleasant soundscape.

"The exhibition home has been designed around the theme of overall wellbeing, easy living and efficient use of space. The architect has used an international approach that structurally opens and closes covered outdoor spaces,” says Honkarakenne’s Head Architect Anne Mäkinen.

The living room and dining area have been combined into a single open space whose spacious feel is enhanced by the tall, rising ceiling and large picture windows. The kitchen is well equipped and recycling has been carefully considered. The conservatory/cool-down room next to the sauna offers a relaxing space for some quiet time, reading or even yoga.

Honka Huomen has been built using Honkarakenne’s genuine non-settling lamellar logs. The living room’s impressive picture windows, and also the windows in the conservatory and kitchen, have been built using the Honka Frame pillar-beam solution.

Smart building technology ensures good indoor air quality

Indoor air is one of the themes explored in the concept home. To ensure good indoor air quality, only safe natural materials and low-emission M1 materials have been used in the house’s construction.

Wireless moisture sensors in concrete slabs and wetspace walls monitor structural moisture content in real time. This ensures that indoor air always maintains its high quality and the house will be protected from moisture damage throughout its entire lifecycle. Functional, correctly adjusted and smartly controlled ventilation keeps both structures and people healthy.

Residents can easily control their heating, ventilation, lighting and soundscape using a smart KNX building technology system, both when at home and remotely. The system can also be programmed with predefined statuses (such as home or away) and specific atmospheres for movie evenings or dinner parties.

Honka Huomen is a carbon sink

Building a log house benefits the climate. A log house does not take much energy to build and will function as a carbon store throughout its lifecycle. Wood binds carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows, and one cubic metre of log has been shown to bind up to 518 kilos of carbon dioxide (Natural Resources Institute Finland). At the end of its lifecycle, a log house can be recycled by, for example, using it in energy production or processing it into biofuel.

Honka Huomen is built using Honkarakenne’s genuine non-settling lamellar logs, which the company has been manufacturing for no less than 16 years. The amount of timber required to build one log wall in a detached home will grow on a summer’s day in Finland in less than a minute. Honkarakenne is committed to acquiring timber only from responsibly managed, PEFC-certified forests. In PEFC-certified forests, a new sapling is planted to replace every tree that is felled.

Honka Huomen is heated using an air-to-water heat pump and water-based underfloor heating. The house also produces its own electricity with the aid of solar panels. Honka Huomen has an Energy Performance Certificate rating of B.

Building details:

• Exhibit: Honka Huomen
• Building type: detached house
• Address: Isokarhunkierto 11, 04300 Tuusula
• Plot area: 600 m²
• Floor area: 132 m²
• Living area: 121 m²
• Configuration: 4R + K + UTRM + sauna, plus carport, storage building and bike shelter
• Architectural design: Anne Mäkinen, Honkarakenne Oyj
• Building supplier: Honkarakenne Oyj
• Log type: Honkarakenne’s genuine non-settling lamellar logs FXL 204S, spruce
• Interior design: Sisustussuunnittelu Maru Hautala
• Heating system: air-to-water heat pump and water-based underfloor heating
• Energy performance rating: B

Additional information:

Images can be downloaded at https://honka.com/media

Sanna Huovinen, Marketing Director, Honkarakenne Oyj, +358 (0)40 1978 707, sanna.huovinen@honka.com

Anne Mäkinen, Head Architect, Honkarakenne Oyj, +358 (0)44 360 7447, anne.makinen@honka.com

Under its Honka® brand, Honkarakenne manufactures high-quality, healthy and ecological detached houses, holiday homes and public buildings using Finnish solid wood. The company has delivered 85,000 buildings to more than 50 countries. The house packages are manufactured in Finland, and the company’s own factory is located in Karstula. In 2018, the Honkarakenne Group had net sales of MEUR 48.9, of which exports accounted for 37%. www.honka.com