Mikontalo
Encyclopedia
Hervanta
Hervanta is a large suburb, or satellite city, of Tampere in Finland, located next to Hallila some 10 km south of the city centre.Home to a population of over 26,000, Hervanta is best known for its prefabricated blocks of flats. The total number of apartments is about 11,000...
, Tampere
Tampere
Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. Its exact address is Insinöörinkatu 60, 33720 Tampere, Finland.
With affordable rents, easy availability and location near Tampere University of Technology, it is popular dwelling for first year students and exchange students.
Mikontalo was built during period 1978–1980
. It consists of 4 blocks with 12 floors where 767 dwellings are situated. Mikontalo offers for its inhabitants also saunas (two each building), a free gym, public lounge with a TV-set, nintendo Wii, Soundsystem, board games, coffee machine and microwave; laundry room (5 washing and 2 drying machines), cable TV and, of course, connection to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
According to word of mouth, Mikontalo is the biggest dwelling building in Finland, and even in Nordic Countries
Nordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
. This is however hard to confirm.
The building went through major renovations from Summer 2007 until Summer 2009. During the renovation juliet balconies
Balcony
Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...
were added to some of the apartments. Also the facade panels were painted with bluish grey color, replacing red, orange and yellow colors.
Mikontalo Lights
The object of MIKONTALOLIGHTS project was to create the world's physically largest colored graphics platform by using the window
Window
A window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...
s of Mikontalo's D block as light pixel
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
s. The platform was used for playing Tetris
Tetris
Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
and other games and present demos created by the students of Tampere University of Technology. The project climaxed on December 4 when the new lights of the building were lit. The goal was to gain global visibility for Tampere University of Technology and the rich student culture of city of Tampere.
MIKONTALOLIGHTS was a part of the 42nd jubilee year of the Student Union of Tampere University of Technology. MIKONTALOLIGHTS was fully carried out by students who were willing to give their work contribution besides their studies. TOAS and the building contractor of Mikontalo Rakennustoimisto Palmberg Oy made it possible to accomplish MIKONTALOLIGHTS by providing Mikontalo as a platform for the project.