Category: Deep Dives
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Design First or Last? A Fork in the Road for Helsinki’s New City Plan
In a couple of my previous posts, I’ve stressed my amazement with the quick change in attitude among Helsinki’s urban planners. The message from the planning authorities is that they have chosen to increasingly question the conventional modernist planning ideology and are now actively seeking to add elements of a more urbanist approach to Helsinki’s…
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Help Cure Finland’s Mall Fever
A couple of months ago I attended a seminar for planning-oriented geographers and the event has kept on circulating in my thoughts because of one comment in particular. During the discussion section, one of the speakers, Marketta Kyttä, was asked what in her opinion will most likely stand out as the most bizarre legacy of…
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Urban Helsinki Versus the Building and Construction Industry
Many urbanists here in Helsinki have recently needed to double-check whether they’re dreaming or really wide awake. This is because last month Helsinki’s City Planning Department published new documentation on what the city will look like in 2050 and what are the basic pillars of the new city plan. Amazingly, the grand visions that have…
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Insights into Townhouse Development in Helsinki and Stockholm
Back in the winter of 2012 I wrote about Helsinki’s interests towards introducing townhouses as a new housing concept. The topic is interesting, because the townhouse building type doesn’t have a history in Helsinki like it does in Central and Western Europe. Despite grand visions, only a few developments labeled as townhouses have been built…
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The Pedestrianization of Vaasankatu – City Enlivenment Gone Astray
My intense year of studying around Europe is now officially over. This means a farewell to essays, papers and exams and a resurrection for my blogging activities. Armed with an updated arsenal of perspectives and experiences, I’ll try my best to keep on updating this blog with thoughts on Finnish cities and urban planning. I’ll…
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A Note on the Finnish Municipality Reform Project
One of my classes in Brussels dealt with looking into Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems approach. The message was to encourage into analyzing Europe and the world without our nation-state glasses on but instead holistically as one giant system. This path ultimately leads to discussions on issues that swirl around the word “globalization”. At the end of…
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Digging into Form-Based Urban Planning
It’s been far too long since my previous post, but I assure you this is not because I would have lost my interest in blogging. It’s just that I haven’t really found the time to write anything during summer. One might think that summer equals as plenty of opportunities to kick back and concentrate on…
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There’s more to Cities than just Architecture – Why Kartanonkoski Is not Sankt Erikskvarteren
In my about page I mention seeing the world in somewhat the same way as the New Urbanism movement does. My earlier posts reflect the movement’s philosophy in different ways, but this time I decided take a more straightforward approach to unfold what all this fuss is essentially about. The key idea that separates New…
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Finland Goes Back to the Future with Wooden Construction
In the past two months I’ve worked with organizing two big seminars on wooden construction in Finland with minister-level attendance. Speakers ranging from governmental institutions and city-planners to the lumber industry unanimously established that wood is the way of the future. Due to tightening carbon emission regulations, wooden construction is now being promoted as an…
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Depaving the ‘Stroads’ to Hell
The way we typically arrange things in cities today is based on a culture of automobility. Over the yeas, the planning profession has little by little accommodated the needs of our motorized companion in the built environment and up to a point where it’s not clear anymore whether it’s people or cars who get the…