Sweco-room offers a place for professionals and students to meet

Sweco-room, opened in the beginning of January in Rakentajanaukio 4, brings students new contact surfaces with the business world and the opportunity to network with the field's professionals already during studies. The experts encourage and guide students in their thesis topics and spar them on in matters related to the field and their career choices.

Professor Jari Puttonen, Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, feels that the presence of companies on university premises is of great significance. 'Cooperation with companies means a great deal for the university. In order to get gifted students to go into the field of design, it is important for companies to have a visible presence at the campus. Collaboration is at its most concrete at Sweco-room.'

Contact surfaces with the business world

Sweco-room will also organise training courses the first of which will take place in January. At least a Tekla course taught by Sweco expert Kirsi Kemppainen is due to be held. In February, Sweco-room will focus on Last Planner design.

The facility is also an excellent venue for different types of events, that focus on topical themes, such as digitalisation, virtual tools and career choices.

Eetu Ristaniemi, Director of Real Estate Investments at Aalto Campus and Real Estate (ACRE) says that Sweco-room is part of the broader thematic entity of built environment. 'Sweco-room is at the very centre of the Aalto University campus, and in the future Rakentajanaukio 4 will also house ACRE's office, the Urban Academy's teaching facilities as well as the project facilities for Cityscope a joint project between MIT, Tongji University and Aalto University.'

Remote work at Sweco-room

The high-quality education provided by Aalto University guarantees that there will be gifted and skilled professionals in the field of structural engineering also in the future. Sweco wants to facilitate fitting education and work together, and to motivate students by providing them with the remote workstations they need.

'Lectures and various leisure time activities take place in a very fragmented manner over the course of a week. Between these, students have plenty of time to work, when their remote workstations are close at hand. This is a fantastic solution,' says Teemu Meriluoto, a Sweco employee who studies at Aalto University.

'We want be easily accessible as our customer guarantee promises. Sweco-room's location inside the university allows the field's students to grow into professionals with us,' sums up Atte Leppänen, Business Development Director  at Sweco Structures.

Sweco and Aalto University entered into a cooperation agreement in 2017, which will support the study of structural engineering, maintain communication between research and design work and improve the further education of professionals in the field. Sweco's new and multipurpose facilities act as a meeting place for students and experts, a remote workstation for students who are already employed and a training facility.