Good collaboration for high class construction 

Finland’s most important cluster of life science and tech companies is in Keilaniemi in Espoo. The real estate company Niam commissioned Peab to build the office building Life Science Center here with a clear sustainable profile. The project was completed in the spring of 2023 having been built in a good atmosphere and close collaboration – and without a single workplace accident.

Today the life science cluster can boast a new seven story office building of almost 10,000 m2. The building is not only ultramodern and flexible with functional, healthy and safe premises, it’s also lovely to look at with a plethora of details.

The project was completed on time, stayed within budget and achieved high quality goals. There were a number of factors that combined to make the project so successful but close collaboration and dialogue in the project team were key. The project team held a kick-off at the start of the project where co-workers got to know each other and set five common goals: high class and sustainable operations, excellent workplace safety, good information channels, proactive and solution-oriented decision-making and collaboration worthy of confidence in each other. The projects progress, successes and areas of improvement were then discussed in workshops during the project. The open discussions contributed to confidence among co-workers and an atmosphere that made everyone want to do their very best for the common goals.

“When confidence is even stronger at the end of a project than in the beginning, it’s a sign of excellent collaboration. In many case cooperation can die out when partners don’t know the basis for the decisions made. We had a really good dialogue throughout the entire project. The better you know each other, the more straight-forward you can be with each other and this further cements collaboration,” says Niam Associate Director, Isto Okonhovi.

The Life Science Center project is also a fine example of high workplace safety since there were no accidents at all. Co-workers uncompromisingly took responsibility for safety in their area of operations and made risk observations part of their daily work. Because of systematic measuring and workplace safety monitoring, safety risks that were revealed could be rectified ongoing.