Finnforest’s FMO Tapiola office building is this year’s winner of Finland’s most prestigious wood architectural competition. The annual award honours high-quality Finnish wood architecture or structures where wood has been used in a manner that promotes construction engineering. Finnforest Modular Office (FMO), a southern landmark in the ‘Garden City’ of Tapiola, meets both criteria – it is built of wooden modular elements and, due to its advanced design, is a pleasant and light environment in which to work. FMO Tapiola incorporates several innovations and product applications developed by Metsäliitto Wood Products Industry (Finnforest). The five-storey building’s versatile use of wood has been combined with stone, glass and steel to add sophistication to its modern looks. The structure was assembled like a lego building out of 1,200 prefabricated elements and 17,000 individually-crafted parts manufactured at the company’s own factory. Lauri Palojärvi, who was Director for Building and Construction at Finnforest during the project, comments that: ‘When building FMO Tapiola, our aim was to prove that prefabricated wood products can be a competitive solution when used in medium-height office buildings. We were right – wood proved to be competitive in terms of the building schedule, costs and environmental performance. FMO Tapiola is part of south Tapiola’s development project and was implemented in cooperation with the city of Espoo.’ Pekka Helin, the primary architect, is confident about the popularity of wood in modern projects: ‘A modern wooden office building shows how wood can meet today’s architectural demands for more ‘human’ and environmentally-friendly structures. Kerto LVL, used in the building’s frame and visible surfaces, represents wood’s novel possibilities in high-tech applications. I see a bright international future for such buildings as the wood renaissance continues. ‘ The Wood Award is given annually by Puuinformaatio ry. The actual construction of the building began in June 2004 and the inauguration ceremony was held on September 5, 2005. It is the tallest wooden office building in Europe built near Helsinki- made of birch and spruce.