Marimekko and Futuro House at Helsinki Design Week 2026 – All photos are by Marimekko.

Design, Interiors. Until 6 September, Helsinki’s Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden is hosting a beloved slice of retro-futurism, dusted off and given a thoroughly modern makeover. Finnish design house Marimekko has turned its hand to the interiors of the Futuro House, that unmistakable flying-saucer silhouette dreamt up by architect Matti Suuronen back in 1968 — one of the era’s boldest statements in space-age design.

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The Futuro House wasn’t always destined for gallery-worthy admiration, mind you. It began life as a practical proposition: a lightweight, prefabricated ski cabin, easy to airlift, quick to heat and built to withstand tricky alpine terrain. Yet its elliptical shell and glossy plastic construction ended up saying something far bigger — a snapshot of 1960s faith in technology and new, freer ways of living.

Now, steered by American architectural heritage expert Jan van Dijs, the Futuro House has touched down in Helsinki for Helsinki Design Week, in partnership with Marimekko.

Inside, the Finnish design and lifestyle brand has done what it does best: brought pattern, colour and a sense of everyday joy into a structure that’s long been more spectacle than sanctuary. Its printmaking heritage and instinct for contemporary living give the Futuro House a warmth it hasn’t had before — playful, optimistic, unmistakably Marimekko.

The layout divides neatly into three connected zones — kitchen, dining-and-work area, and a lounge-cum-sleeping space. Each is dressed in prints created specifically for the project by textile artist Vibeke Rohland. spent over a year embedded in Marimekko’s Artist in Residence programme at the brand’s Helsinki textile factory.

Rohland worked alongside the in-house design team and factory artisans. The experience pulled her into Marimekko’s long tradition of hand-printing, pushing her towards fresh ideas about colour, material and form — ideas that now sit in quiet conversation with the Futuro House’s sculptural architecture.

As Marimekko’s Creative Director Rebekka Bay puts it: “Marimekko has always existed at the intersection of art, design, fashion and architecture. Futuro represents bold, forward-looking Finnish architecture, where material, form, and function come together in an exceptional way. Marimekko’s role is to enrich the Futuro experience by entering into dialogue with the structure — bringing a human touch, atmosphere and intimacy into the space through textiles and products.”

It’s a fitting pairing, really — two distinctly Finnish design icons, decades apart, finding common ground in Helsinki this September.