2012

After coming up with the idea of building a greenhouse, we started to look around to find a place for it. After walking around for some time and thinking what we would need from the place we settled in Seppo Rehnvall Park (Nokia Park) in Helsinki Vallila. It was an abandoned area in the middle of Helsinki and close to Minnamari's studio. It's uncared nature gave us a freedom with the planning of how the greenhouse will be.

Stones, which were dug out when making the bases for the greenhouse, and later used to make the floor

Planning of the greenhouse happened during the making of it, and took inspiration from the surrounding park and buildings but was also based on the materials that we could find or could afford to buy. The structure of the roof was based on the square shape of the building, and the shape of the building was determined by the windows which we got from Kannelmäki, a 60-70 built suburb in northern Helsinki. The little part in the middle of the roof, we came up with when thinking how to attach the roof beams together. It got nicknamed "the rubic square".

(The rubic square)

2013

The year 2013 started with finding materials, like timber, screws and so on. And after having enough, we started to built the vertical support structures between the main beams for the plexiglass. They were designed to fit with the shapes that were seen through the roof, like the trees and branches, but sometimes also clouds passing by. We started from the top and middle, and came downwards one side at a time. At some point it also started to have spiderweb like features due to the many vertical lines. The roof needed to be strong enough to support snow on winter time.

In the beginning the greenhouse was also planned to hide in the park behind the trees due to its illegal position.

2014

2014 we build the floor and growing boxes. The photos are lost, but will be dug from our archives and added later.

During the year we covered the roof with plastic, built the growing boxes and filled them with soil.

2015

2015 - a year just to grow vegetables.

And we were happy to see that the greenhouse worked well for that. We grew tomatoes, ground artichoke, pumpkins, herbs and so on.

2016

We started the year with planting all kinds of thing, but during the summer we were contacted by Helsinki City and got to know that the park will be turned into a dog park. Luckily they wanted to keep the greenhouse, but we were told that it would be moved into south-west corner of the park.

So in August plants were repotted, soil removed and boxes taken out.

(And then the whole park was turned upside down.)

The new place was in the south-west corner of the park and new foundations were made by Helsinki City

The greenhouse was supported with wooden structures and made ready for the lifting and moving.

The new place was determined by the planning team of the park and it was carefully measured and marked. And Helsinki City building team made new foundations for the greenhouse.

(Everyone were relieved to see that the greenhouse stayed in one piece.)

After the move we remade the old floor with using the old materials

..and then remade the roof

We finished the year by bringing in the growing boxes.

During the summer we had also made new doors for the greenhouse which were now put on place.

2017

We started the year 2017 with building new growing boxes next to the fence to make the surroundings more invitive.

The inside of the boxes were charred to prevent them getting molded or rotten

Measurement for new water hose

and soil for the boxes.

First harvest of the new place.

2018

On the year 2018 we were invited to take part in an exhibition in Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) and got a material budget for a new roof.

First we measured the roof beams and cut the polycarbonate sheets in eight triangles. Then we lifted the pieces up on the roof and drew patterns on the plastic covering the sheets, to be able to cut them in shape and cut out some parts that we wanted to cover with colourful plexiglass pieces.

Then we started to attach the plastic sheets each 1/8 of a roof at a time and from top down. The planning where to place the colourful spots and which colours to use happened as before during the working. The colourful plexiglass we had bought some time ago from a storage sale which also sold plastic seagulls. Which we also bought.

The far corners of the wooden structures were covered with thin wooded strips, to have the corners in right angle for the plastic sheets. Then we made aluminium pieces to press the plastic sheets with screws to the wooden frame. (We didn't want to screw through the plastic sheets because of heat expansion.) Under the aluminium we cut little pieces of rubber sheets to prevent the roof from leaking.

And then we had a new roof, but no doors since during the winter the doors were stolen, one by one.

During the exhibition in Helsinki Art Museum the visitors were invited to visit the greenhouse. In the exhibition space there was an installation with chairs based on the shapes on the roof, a poster with a text from sociologist Pasi Mäenpää, (graphic design Johannes Rantapuska) and a photo album. (More info in events section.)