Dreamhouse designed for sustainability and comfort
Built for the Oulu Housing Fair 2025, Huvilainen is the dreamhouse of Annika Karjalainen and Aleksi Lappalainen – a modern home designed to accommodate the residents for years to come.
Designed around the principles of energy efficiency, sustainability and quality, the modern home brings a touch of luxury to everyday life.
“From the initial design stage, we knew that we wanted to build a home that aligns with our values,” Annika and Aleksi say.
For Annika and Aleksi, alignment with their values means sustainable living and environmental consciousness. The young and active couple wanted to build a house that represents their values – a next-generation smart home made from real and sustainable materials that is energy-efficient with maximum self-sufficiency.
“To optimise living comfort, we wanted our home to have a high-quality Vallox ventilation unit.”
In addition to the ventilation unit equipped with excellent heat recovery properties and air quality sensors, the home’s energy efficiency is boosted by sustainable solutions such as a geothermal heating system and roof-top solar panels with a home energy storage system.
“Go big and go home”
Annika and Aleksi had been dreaming about a home near the city centre of Oulu for some time. When the Oulu Housing Fair 2025 was announced, the couple decided to finally reach for their dreams and applied for a waterfront plot with a beautiful view.
“We jumped into this housing fair project with a ‘go big and go home’ mentality.”
Annika and Aleksi are moving into their new home alone, but the house has been designed to adapt to new additions to the family and pets through flexible space solutions. In their new home, the couple can smoothly combine work and pleasure – the spacious home has a study, a guest room and a gym.
High-quality indoor air with a high-quality ventilation unit
With a floor area of 200 square metres, the two-storey stone building is kept cool and fresh with a Vallox 145 MV ventilation unit (energy class A).
On the HVAC designer’s recommendation and based on the couple’s personal experience, a Vallox ventilation unit was an obvious choice for the new dreamhouse.
“Vallox’s units were not only recommended by the HVAC designer, but we had first-hand experience of one. We had a Vallox unit in our old home, and their units are undeniably the best on the market. We have been very satisfied with the quality of our indoor air, so we did not even consider other brands,” the couple praises Vallox’s units.
Annika and Aleksi value the ease and comfort of living as well as automated solutions, and the Vallox ventilation unit delivers them what they need. The unit’s integrated sensors boost ventilation automatically, making it a carefree solution. In the couple’s experience, Vallox ventilation units are reliable, quiet and easy to maintain.
Annika and Aleksi believe that Housing Fair visitors have noticed the high-quality indoor air in their home. They themselves registered the freshness of air when viewing Villa Kruunu at the Loviisa Housing Fair 2023, which also had a Vallox ventilation unit.
The ventilation unit in Huvilainen can be connected to the MyVallox Cloud service for remote control.
“When we leave for a trip, we can set the ventilation system to the Away mode either remotely on a mobile phone or at home through the MyVallox Touch control panel. Otherwise, we let the automation take care of everything.”
In Huvilainen, the Vallox ventilation unit has been wall-mounted in a technical space with plenty of room left around the unit to allow easy filter replacement and other maintenance work.
“The installation process went smoothly. Vallox ventilation units are popular and technicians are familiar with them. This ensures quick and easy installation and setup.”
