The Mill: A Boater's Rest Stop by Rintala Eggertsson Architects

If you have ever taken a long canoe or kayak trip you will recognize this as a lovely idea- a beautiful, covered rest stop, perhaps with a little electricity to charge up the camera. And of course in Finland they take design seriously and have not forgotten the heritage of Aalto.

Designboom writes:

On the Halikko river in Finland, Rintala Eggertsson Architects have constructed 'the mill'.originally a proposal for green art, an ecological landscape art exhibition in Finland,'the mill' is a shelter for kayak paddlers located on each side of the river bank which in southwest Finland. In the river's central stream, a mill collects energy that is generated from the river's current. The project was done in collaboration with Janne Saario, a student of architecture in helsinki.

I cannot tell if it was ever built, but suspect that if the paddlewheel was built like the one in the model it isn't going to generate a whole lot of electricity. Nice to look at though.

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