The New Wood competition 2025: Green roof gives bin shelter a new role in urban environments
Uusi puu – The New Wood Project shows what wood can do. The project promotes wood-based innovations and provides information about them.
The Kierto bin shelter is a space-saver in cramped urban spaces, combining waste collection, landscaping and an adaptable modular timber structure.
The increase of recycling has also brought about the need to improve waste collection points, especially in urban areas. Bin shelters have usually been considered a necessary evil, but the new Kierto shelter combines practicality with urban nature, turning the eyesore into an eye-catcher.
Developed by Architectural Consultants Elina Ipatti Oy, the timber-framed Kierto shelter stands apart because of its green roof. It is designed particularly to fit small and cramped urban spaces, where greenery often has to take second place to buildings, parking lots – and bin shelters.
The green roof of the Kierto shelter is not only an ecological element, but also a means of controlling stormwater (run-off rainwater) and a suitable environment for pollinators. Thanks to this, the waste collection point is no longer something best banished to the farthest corner of the building plot, but an element of functional and attractive landscape design.
The modular structure of the shelter makes it easy to vary its size and appearance. The construction materials are Finnish wood and recycled glue-lam elements, treated with non-toxic coatings. The design complies with the fire safety requirements of densely built urban areas.
The Kierto shelter is design protected. Since similar, adaptable solutions with a green roof are hardly to be found on the market, Architectural Consultants Elina Ipatti Oy believe Kierto to have a great potential of use, ranging from small housing companies to single-family houses and public buildings and facilities.
Forest.fi and New Wood are initiatives of the Finnish Forest Association.