Mäkelänmäki Wood School campus in Muurame

Joy and energy are recycled at the Mäkelänmäki Wood School campus. Energy efficiency, physical activity, and comfort are prioritized at the Mäkelänmäki school campus in Muurame. Sweco’s HVAC and structural designers supported the new wooden school and multipurpose building’s construction and renovation work, and also provided water treatment design.

Published 4th December 2025.

Energy-efficient wooden school campus completed in Muurame

The Mäkelänmäki Wood School and multipurpose building were completed in Muurame in two phases during an approximately four-year project. The old school on the campus was demolished and a new Wood School was built next to it. In the second phase, the swimming hall was expanded and a new sports hall (Metso Hall) was built: the multipurpose building also gained additional teaching spaces, and the upper secondary school received an extension.

“There were confirmed indoor air problems in the more than 30-year-old school, and the construction of a new school had already been postponed once with an interim solution in the adjacent Noppa building,” says Mäkelänmäki school principal Petri Palve about the background and need for the large school project.

Wood school campus designed with teacher involvement

Sweco was responsible for the campus’s structural, HVAC, and building automation design for both new construction and renovation. Teachers were involved in the process, and the result is an ecological and adaptable primary school in which some teaching spaces are separated by movable partitions. Different age groups have their own learning spaces, called Villages.

“The new facilities have greatly supported the shift in our school’s operational culture and pedagogical goals, such as teachers of each age group working closely as pairs,” Palve says.

As a new principal, he was also able to bring valuable experience from earlier school design processes in Jyväskylä. “From a moisture control perspective, one of my wishes was sliding glass walls between cloakrooms/boot areas and the learning spaces.”

Wooden school campus emphasizes energy efficiency

The Mäkelänmäki Wood School was integrated into the extension. The Municipality of Muurame wanted to use massive timber CLT elements for the new school’s exterior walls, which were combined with reinforced concrete columns and hollow-core slabs. The connection points of the CLT elements were challenging from an acoustic perspective. “Special attention had to be paid to the details of the timber element connections,” says Sweco’s lead structural engineer and Healthy Building expert Raul Korolainen.

The multipurpose building, expanded from the swimming hall, has a reinforced concrete column-beam frame with load-bearing and stiffening precast concrete walls. HTT-slabs enable versatile, open spaces. “The sports hall has a 28-metre span, so it can accommodate a full-size court with stands,” Korolainen says. The clear height is also sufficient for competitive-level volleyball, for example.

Not all old drawings were available, so the structural engineers frequently visited the multipurpose building’s construction site when the contractor opened up structures. All campus buildings, including Noppa and the upper secondary school, are partially connected by an underground and partly covered linking corridor. “There were many junctions between different building masses and materials.”

Energy recycled at the wooden school campus

Sweco’s HVAC designers were responsible for the energy design of the school and multipurpose building. The Wood School receives its heating and cooling energy from 27 geothermal boreholes, and its energy consumption is only a fraction of that of the old school. The energy efficiency is 86 percent.

“Energy is also recycled on the site, and the waste heat from the artificial ice rink on the yard is recovered with a heat pump to heat the multipurpose building and the pool waters,” says Sweco HVAC project manager Lauri Paanala. The heat pump is also used for building cooling, and district heating is included as backup.

A comprehensive building automation system ensures high-quality indoor conditions in both the school and the multipurpose building. “Ventilation and temperatures can be adjusted in different spaces as needed based on condition measurements,” Paanala says. The school has 15 ventilation units operating by service area, and the multipurpose building, upper secondary school, and Noppa together have nearly as many.

Water treatment design for the swimming hall extension

The Wood School follows the “Active School” theme, so its location next to the 1,000-square-metre multipurpose building and the outdoor sports fields is ideal. The existing swimming hall was expanded to include additional sports facilities as well as multipurpose and cold pools, for which Sweco was responsible for the water treatment design.

“The goal was to retain as much of the existing technology and structures as possible in the underground water treatment rooms,” Paanala says. The water treatment design involved considerable integration between new and old technologies, and the demanding conditions were also taken into account in the structural solutions.

Muurame wooden school campus brings joy to students

The Wood School was opened on schedule in January 2023 and the multipurpose building followed one and a half years later. Feedback from teachers, children, and their parents during the first years has been uniformly positive. The entire school staff and the pupils are able to use the premises without symptoms.

“It is a privilege to lead a unit like Mäkelänmäki, where the municipality’s investments in the future are visible: a healthy and safe school environment,” Palve says. “Joyfulness is also part of running a school, because that helps children grow into mentally healthier adults.”