Kyly, a work by architects Ville Hara and Anu Puustinen (SAFA) of Avanto Architects, has won the eighth Habitare Design Competition, organized by Finland's largest design fair. Asami Naito, a graduate student in architecture, assisted with the design. The leading judge of the competition, architect and professor Sami Rintala, awarded the winner the 8,000 euro prize at the Habitare Fair on September 9th. The theme of this year the University of Art and Design Helsinki, was the Sauna. The lead judge of the competition, Sami Rintala, explained his choice in this way: “Hara, Puustinen, and Naito show in their work how massive wood can be used in the year 2009 in a way way that’s holistic and appropriate to the times. Their series of spaces celebrates the ritual of the sauna – arriving, removing the markers of everyday life as we undress, ascending into the sauna, and cleansing ourselves – in a way that’s straightforward and easy to comprehend. It’s about a space for bathing culture. Kyly is both universal and at the same time an unmistakably Finnish sauna.”