Case study · Property owner

Ylva: one portfolio, every kind of tenant, one key

Residents, office tenants, gym members, bands, guests and a construction crew — all in the same buildings, and until recently all on different access control systems, or none at all.

Ylva is owned by the Helsinki Student Union. Its purpose is to enable a vibrant student life, and it has been part of Helsinki's cityscape for over 150 years. It owns some of the city's most recognisable buildings: the Old and New Student House, and Domus Academica, the housing complex where generations of students have lived.

The atrium of a Ylva property, a curved balcony above a stairwell and a wall of tall windows — One complex, many kinds of space — and, until recently, many kinds of lock.

Challenge one: the common areas

Domus Academica is three distinct housing properties, plus commercial space, conference rooms, a laundry, shared areas and a garage — with Aalto University Executive Education as a tenant. A complex that heterogeneous is exactly where traditional access control becomes costly and awkward, and where PIN codes quietly stop working.

“We share the basement, sauna and laundry room. We used to have a PIN-code system, but the readers have been removed due to the codes ending up in wrong hands.”
Markus ThoméProperty manager, Ylva

“Crossing from one building to the other is challenging, as there are different access control systems or no access control system at all. The intricacy of the systems affects people's everyday life and overloads the administration, as we need to manage access control in many different systems simultaneously, which is costly and slow.”
Markus ThoméProperty manager, Ylva

The Domus car park, bicycles racked against a white brick wall under the lit Domus sign — The garage: shared by residents, tenants and, for a month at a time, a renovation crew.

Challenge two: the tenants

Outside tenants are a user group of their own — a gym with 3,000 customers and its trainers, and band rehearsal rooms that want a booking system worth the name.

“The gym has 3000 customers plus the trainers. The band rehearsal spaces would like to have an efficient booking system. The access control currently in use is obsolete and confusing. We are in charge of it, but we'd like the gym and the rehearsal space to manage access independently.”
Markus ThoméProperty manager, Ylva

What Ylva wants next

The ambition is a tenant who never carries a key at all: one login that opens the laundry, books a sauna shift, an office or a party venue, reports a maintenance need, shows the house rules, or reserves a turn at the shared car.

Laundry, common areas, garage, gym — done

Mobile access is already running in the common areas, and the administrative load has fallen with it.

“The app is easy to use, and the admin work has reduced dramatically. Misuse has diminished, and tenants have been mostly very pleased. The common areas in the guest house have a mobile key. It's so convenient not to have to hand out keys, and that access rights go straight to users' phones and are valid for the agreed time.”
Markus ThoméProperty manager, Ylva

The gym's trainers have started using the mobile key too, and would like to run their own access in future.

“One clear example of how much easier daily life has become is that we have one-month-long renovation works starting soon, and with the app, I was able to assign access rights to the crew, for example, to the garage for the duration of the project. How incredibly easy is that? It is a relief to know that keys will not be forgotten somewhere, in the pockets of the construction crew members or on their desks. We don't have that problem anymore.”
Markus ThoméProperty manager, Ylva

A man walking to a side entrance with his phone in his hand, past the old keypad on the wall — The keypad on the wall is what the phone replaced.

NFC on Android makes the phone behave like a keycard — show it to the reader and the door opens — and that is due to be tested in the Ylva property. Beyond it lie the apartment doors themselves, which would take the friction out of moving in: access granted when the lease is signed and withdrawn when it ends, rather than a tenant racing the lobby desk to arrive before four o'clock.

Who would Markus Thomé recommend it to?

New builds — construction companies should consider access control based on mobile technology from the start.
Any property renewing its locks or its obsolete access system, or considering mobile access.
Any property with a problem of unauthorised people getting in.

Text and editing: Bitwards / Katja Sonninen. Translation: Bitwards / Katariina Benedetti. Originally published by Bitwards, 25 May 2023.