Small town sees the big picture

A courageous decision: The municipal council of Suure-Jaani invested in a new health & wellness centre in the middle of town to improve the quality of life in modern surroundings and to counteract the depopulation of this small Estonian town. 
 
The building features a red clinker brick façade with a varied and fascinating arrangement of windows that also employs blind windows – window frames filled in with brick. It accommodates a swimming pool, several saunas, a café, a family health centre, a dental practice, a pharmacy, a hairdresser’s salon, a walk-in clinic and a police station.

The Suure-Jaani health & wellness centre uses clear architectural concepts and is distinguished by a sophisticated design, excellent planning, functionality and choice of materials. Terca Stockholm clinker bricks were used to create a large, cohesive building that is visually divided into multiple smaller individual red-brick houses. In this way, it blends into the typical urban scenery of this small town. 
 
The separate buildings are joined by glass-clad communal areas that consolidate them into a single contemporary and fascinating unit. The gable roofs of the houses also harmonise with the design language of Suure-Jaani and the modular solar elements used in the roof design impart the impression of technological innovation. The pattern of red brick cladding in the interior is broken up by occasional large gaps between the bricks, by the way also resolving the acoustic problems that are common in large open-plan spaces.

The continuation of the brick wall from the outside to the inside and the glass façade elements recessed into the wall structure are just some of the small, ingenious and thoughtful details that underpin the overall architectural design. The perception of space and communication of the architectural concept is accentuated by the differing interior space solutions and the faintly mystical impression of the central pool area.
All the elements seem to have been perfectly harmonised in this construction project: starting with carefully conceived, professional preparatory work regarding the site and architecture followed by close coordination between the architects and interior designers, and the creation of a functional and elegant structure – and all this within the space of four years.
 
An earlier version of this article was previously published in MAJA (no. 99, Winter 2020) by Toomas Tammis, architect and professor of architecture at the Estonian Academy of Arts.