Jean-Luc Godard said, 'It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.' And to this end, our family holiday to Finland in 2016 proved rich pickings! Keen observers of our projects, and hopefully there might be one or two(!), might have noticed a number of Finnish details creeping into our work.

The first pays tribute to a motif that appears quite regularly within Aalto's work. In a number of projects, Aalto incorporates a system of vertical extrusions, either in the form of a rod or a fin, within the external or internal cladding. Examples of this are in either wood or ceramics. In the case of the partition within the cafe at Trinity Works we have used an extrusion of tulipwood that not only creates a strong aesthetic, but also enables us to discretely facet the curves of the wall. Unsurprisingly, a number of people have commented on the Scandinavian 'feel' of the cafe!

The second 'theft' relates to an approach to standing seam roofs that is seen quite regularly in both historic and contemporary buildings in Finland. Rather than a traditional gutter, an angled seam is introduced on the lower part of the roof to direct the rainwater into a hopper. We loved the simplicity of this detail and incorporated it within the copper roof at Cleefold.