Our alum Samuli Miettinen: Award-winning architect advocates happiness and holistic sustainability

Architecture school gave a huge career boost 

Samuli Miettinen is perhaps best known in Tampere as the winner of the 2024 Finlandia Prize for Architecture. The prize was awarded for the design of the Tammelan Stadion football stadium, which Samuli headed as Lead Designer. The stadium has been embraced by the public and praised for both its architecture and functionality as a football arena.

Before the stadium and the decade-long process that led up to it, a lot had happened at JKMM Architects. Founded in 1998, the company has designed a number of well-known new and renovation projects over the years: the Amos Rex art museum, the extension of the National Museum of Finland, the University of the Arts Helsinki, Dance House Helsinki, the OP Financial Group headquarters and the Jyväskylä Central Hospital – to name a few. One of the latest ones is the We Land Ruoholahti office building in Helsinki, opened in 2024.

Samuli set up the architectural practice together with his fellow students Juha Mäki-Jyllilä and Asmo Jaaksi, who had all become acquainted in Tampere, and Teemu Kurkela, who had studied in Helsinki.

The architecture school gave a huge boost to my career. Even as a student, our goal was always to win a competition and set up an office, and that's exactly what happened. We won the architectural competition for Turku Main Library back in 1998, and that became our first joint design project."

Samuli Miettinen

“The architecture school gave a huge boost to my career. Even as a student, our goal was always to win a competition and set up an office, and that's exactly what happened. We won the architectural competition for Turku Main Library back in 1998, and that became our first joint design project,” Samuli says.

JKMM Architects' own current office space is also impressive. The company's nearly hundred employees occupy office space on three floors in Kamppi, central Helsinki.

Sustainability spans far beyond ecology

Samuli describes an architect's work as 95% meticulous technical execution and the rest as creativity. He believes that careful, skilful and dedicated work creates cultural meanings and brings well-being, joy and an infrastructure of happiness to places such as learning and working environments.

Samuli is also a strong advocate for sustainability, which he sees as a much wider concept than a mere ecological issue. Sustainability is also a social, political, economic, artistic and cultural mission. One of the key tasks of an architect is to reconcile conflicting goals, and a sustainable outcome inevitably requires compromises.

“Architecture also involves many niche areas. Renovation is on the rise, there is demand for expertise in genuinely sustainable construction, and software also involves many distinctive areas,” Samuli lists.

Samuli speaks eagerly for interdisciplinary cooperation. He considers the juxtaposition between architects and engineers, for example, to be completely unnecessary.

“An engineer’s skills are often deeper but narrower than those of an architect. The aim of integrated design is for architects to deepen their knowledge while engineers broaden theirs. Also from an environmental point of view, we are at a tipping point where we cannot think only in terms of our own, limited silos on a particular project. We have to find ways to serve the whole planet,” Samuli states.

Student years are framed in gold

Samuli studied architecture at Tampere University before the turn of the millennium. What he finds exceptional about the studies was that they taught students both to compete and to support others – both highly necessary skills in working life. Samuli considers it a huge stroke of luck for himself that the architecture department in Tampere was in such a good place at the time.

“The atmosphere was enthusiastic, instruction was good and the department had established itself as a high-quality school. It was a good place for learning and we had genuine academic freedom. Our class was great, and I made good friends with whom we shared both studies and leisure,” Samuli says.

The atmosphere was enthusiastic, instruction was good and the department had established itself as a high-quality school. It was a good place for learning and we had genuine academic freedom. Our class was great, and I made good friends with whom we shared both studies and leisure."

Samuli Miettinen

Samuli and his fellow students went on various excursions and travelled around Europe on Interrail in the summer. One of his warmest memories is a 5.5 week trip to the United States.

“We used to drop by for an evening snack at a local diner while doing schoolwork, and they had a huge photograph of Manhattan in the evening light on their wall. It sparked the idea to go and travel in the US. We bought an old car in New Jersey and drove to places like San Francisco and Mexico. The budget for the whole trip was about 800 euros per person in today's currency, which feels pretty incredible now. We travelled around and explored both architecture and life – we absorbed everything we could,” Samuli reminisces.

Architecture studies taught the students to manage complex issues while also taking them on a journey to selfhood – which Samuli considers essential for practising the profession. An architect needs to have enormous patience, tolerance for disappointment and the belief that something new will always emerge.

“When I think back, my student years are now framed in gold, and the memories grow even sweeter as time goes by. We are now living our dream from those days in the areas and buildings we design,” Samuli says.

Text: Tiina Leivo

Read more alumni stories